Redemption in the Grey
by Alexeij
Summary: As the Fifth blight brings havoc upon the lands of Ferelden, the last Wardens seek their personal redeption struggling amidst treachery and mischief darker than any darkspawn's corruption. A personal readaptation that will step here and there in AU land. I don't own Dragon Age, I only play in the kindergarden AN: Edited Chapter 7, smoothed some contradictions.
1. 1) A Royal Welcome

The chilly breeze flapped Duncan's white robes as he strode along Ostagar's Pass, his fine leather boots clanking regularly on the thousands-years-old polished pavement; the Warden Commander's eyes briefly wandered over the old, yet sturdy ruins of the once grand Tervinter stronghold, the half-crumbled walls and monumental arches covered with climbing plants, the Tower of Ishal casting its long shadow over the valley. A eerie vision of lingering magnificence that that never ceased to amaze him even in his late years with its quiet glorious presence, but soon such thoughts were cast aside in favor of more pressing matters.

Several Fereldan soldiers nodded at him, a few even attempted a slight bow, while others simply ignored him, either for lack of respect or lack of time: the bridge was buzzing with activity much like a beehive, elven messengers running either way with weary looks on their reddened faces and soldiers checking on the artillery or marching in platoons towards the army camp below their very feet, stretching to the whole length of the narrow passage and far beyond. However, Duncan's attention was entirely focused on the gold-clad figure pacing impatiently at the very end of the arched bridge, shimmering under the midday's tepid sun and closely watched over by no less than ten fully armored guards. 'Good thing we can rely on Theryn Loghayn at least' inwardly grimaced Duncan, coming to a sudden halt when he felt a shy tug at his shoulder.

"Commander, I..." the words died in the girl's throat when she met Duncan's deep black eyes. The Warden Commander repressed a sigh: even though he had not meant to glare menacingly some of his annoyance must have slipped through his facade and scared the breath out of his latest protegé, who quickly lowered her eyes and stared intently at her feet, a flock of pure white hair falling over her brow for further shielding the recruit from her Commander.

"Yes?" politely inquired Duncan, refraining from shooting a glance behind his back and shrugging off the two dark hazel eyes boring between his shoulder blades. The recruit slowly raised her head but carefully avoided any eye contact, her voice feeble and barely audible over the general commotion.

"Can you... not tell the others?" she pleaded, almost whining like a beaten dog. "_Please_, they would..." Words failed the recruit once more and she fell once more in the troubled silence that had been Duncan's sole companion for most of the trip southwards, exception made for the odd question regarding something she had read in the few books about the Order he had lent her to ease her mind from the recent events. '_Eaten_, more than read' quickly considered the Warden Commander, before placing a calloused hand on her thin shoulder and giving one of his even glares at the recruit. When he spoke, his voice was grave and low only for the recruit to hear him.

"You already know that Wardens cannot be held accountable for the deeds before their recruitment by any power in Thedas, being it the Chantry or the King." Duncan felt the recruit stiffen at his reproach, but nonetheless he pressed on. 'There is no time to be gentle'. "Know that I would not have recruited you if I had not believed you to be a valiant asset for the Order in this times of distress, even if it would have left you alone to face an horrible death, or worse. It was no act of pity, nor a safe escape: Wardens take whatever help they are offered with no regard for widespread beliefs, nor those should restrain you henceforth."

The recruit was as stiff as a log by the time Duncan ended his little speech, and the Warden Commander truly hoped that she would soon heartily accept her new predicament, otherwise she would not last long against what was to come. 'Provided that she survives the Joining at all'. Still she refused to meet his gaze, a behavior that would have vexed a younger Duncan to no end, but with the years comes wisdom and the Warden Commander had large pools of patience in store. He could feel her deep uneasiness on the subject irradiating from her lithe form, her lower lip trembling in what... shame? That and regret as well, probably, and the implanted fear of being branded and persecuted.

Even now, under the very protection of Warden-recruit status, her eyes flashed frantically in every direction but his own, from soldier to soldier in desperate search from any visible and invisible threat. Many actually noticed her and stole glances at her peculiar hair color, but where Duncan generally saw simple curiosity and little malice, she probably felt wolfish eyes creeping under her skin to unveil what she had done trying to defend a friend from a dreadful fate. 'Maker, she is _terrified_'

Duncan sighed, and his voice was actually cracked by a hint of compassion. "That said, it's up to you whether to tell your new brothers and sister the extent of your skills, even though I am bound to advise Viole, my second in command" Duncan paused and forced his tone back to its usual gravity. "However, in _no_ case your hesitation should prevent you from achieving your mission or cause harm to any member of the Order, for that would be treason towards us all. It's solely up to you now, and for my part I won't reveal what lead you here but to my second. This I swear on my honor as a Warden"

The recruit visibly relaxed hearing his oath and finally met his black eyes with her dark violet ones, for once partially freed from the veil of terror that constantly haunted them and shining with gratitude at him. Duncan felt a small jolt of relief despite all his forced composure and the right corner of his lips twisted in an almost invisible smile.

"Thank you Commander, thank you, thank you so much" she blabbed under her breath. Duncan quickly squeezed her shoulder and turned towards the awaiting party, their golden leader growing restless by the minute while his followers stood still as Andrastean statues and scanned their surroundings for hidden menaces from under their heavy helms. Thankfully the recruit fell behind him immediately and ceased her blabbing thanks, hardly managing to match his long strides with her shorter and untrained legs. 'Still far better than the first day though' considered Duncan, trying to hide his growing concern for the situation at hand while closing in.

"**Duncan**!" yelled a joyous young voice, thundering above the ruins. The golden figure stepped forward with arms wide in a welcoming gesture, his blond hair tucked graciously behind his ears despite the breeze and matching the texture of his father's massive armor. "High time you came! I was afraid you would miss all the fun!" His smile was wide and light-hearted and went right up to his dark hazel eyes, which glittered brightly in the blaze of gold that covered him from head to toe.

Duncan grimaced inwardly, the urge of slapping this silly man over the face building up by the moment. 'A Blight at your door would be your idea of f_un,_ my King?' he would have spat if he did not bear the responsibility of the Order and the people of Ferelden on his shoulders, a responsibility their very King took half-heartily at best. Instead, he shifted his weight and answered with the most neutral tone he could muster.

"Not if I can help it, my King". King Cailan reveled in the news like a pig in thick mud, his features shining with pure, childish excitement. The King's armored arms seized his own right one and shook it gingerly with far less strength that one would expect from a self-named 'Warrior-King'.

"Then I will have the mighty Duncan at my side against the Darkspawn! _Glorious_!" King Cailan stared in the void of his own fantasies for a few more moments, then his fluttering attention turned to Duncan's latest recruit, partially hidden behind the Warden-Commander broad figure. His eyes lingered for a few moments on her hair before his mouth voiced the very first thoughts that crossed his mind.

"The other Wardens informed me that you have found a promising recruit. I take that this is she? Where are her weapons? What has happened to her hair?" The delusion was badly concealed in the King's voice while he eyed the poorly-looking girl before him and Duncan restrained from slapping himself on the forehead. Still, he could see the King's point in his naivety: dressed in a too big tunic and leather breeches, with worn-out boots and a dull cape hanging loosely from her thin shoulders, his recruit would not strike as someone worth joining the Grey Wardens' ranks in a thousand years. 'Still one must not be deceived by the looks, as your _Father_ should have taught you'.

The recruit stiffened behind him, her slender hands clutching nervously at the greenish hem of her tunic, her eyes dancing crazily inside their orbits and her pale complexion, burned here and there by the sun, turning even paler. Duncan repressed yet another sigh and came in much needed aid.

"Allow me to present you Mavis Amell, your Majesty. She is one of the youngest Enchanters the Circle ever had and has willingly agreed to support our efforts against the coming Blight" Duncan paused, letting the half-truths sink in; much to his liking, King Cailan's eyes lightened up at the word '_Enchanter_', but the stares coming from his honor guard were unlikely shrouded with the same interest that had taken hold on their King. Mavis slightly trembled under the cold glares and Duncan continued his report to the King's own pleasure.

"The white hair is due to her Harrowing your Majesty, which I was told was completed in record time. She will surely be an extremely valuable asset to the Order, and to the coming battle" added the Warden-Commander, before being silenced by a golden-gauntlet hand. The King did not even turn to him, but stepped towards Mavis much to her growing discomfort.

"Enough with the formalities, we will be shedding blood together very soon after all" jumped in the King, vigorously seizing the mage-girl's slender forearm and shaking it eagerly, almost tearing it off. "Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Ostagar. The Wardens will benefit greatly with you in their ranks". Mavis looked about to panic and run off, but somehow managed to keep a shadow of composure and mutter a feeble 'Thank you' to the now over-excited King. Duncan quickly brought him back to reality before something very nasty occurred.

"Your Uncle sends word that his troops are less than a week of march away, and that the Orleasians are at the border with Gherlen Pass awaiting to pass through. Four legions of Chevaliers and a hundred Wardens to boot he reports, your Majesty, and I got messages from the Orlesian Wardens that..." Once again, King Cailan's golden hand silenced him, but the look on the young man's face quickly deflated into one of deep dissatisfaction, his mouth twisting. The King sighed loudly.

"I have been debating with Loghain on this very point ever since we set camp here, Duncan. I won't lie to you, he threatened to leave the army _outright_ if I accepted the Empress' offered help. He threatens his own _King,_ you see!" King Cailan scoffed but then resumed his talking. "The scouts are fueling us with continuous report on the Horde's advance in the Wilds but they are conflicting with each other, so your Second has lead a scouting party out yesterday to assess the situation with her very eyes" Duncan frowned at the news and at the preoccupied looks that passing soldiers were shooting them seeing the King sulking, but they all visibly relaxed when the King burst out laughing.

"Eamon just wants in on the glory. We have already won three battles against these monsters and the next will be no different. " confidently stated King Cailan, straightening up and hitting his cuirass with an armored punch to underline his words. "I'm not even sure this is a Blight. There are plenty of darkspawn on the field but alas, we have seen _no_ sign of the Archdemon you have told me about time and again" The King once again did a poor job hiding his disappointment and Duncan felt his temper flare at such foolishness. 'The worst threat to the very life Thedas has faced in four Ages and he regrets that it has not showed up and brought havoc upon us all!'

Barely capable of restraining a flaming retort, Duncan half-hissed half-reproached at the King, his brow frowning deeply over his narrowing eyes. "Disappointed, your Majesty?" 'Maker preserve me until my time comes'

King Cailan made a face, like a child who had just ingested a sour medicament. "I had hoped for a war like in the _tales_! A King riding with the fabled Gery Wardens against a tainted God!" Then the King shrugged, the disappointment for not facing Uthermiel showing again on his fine fieature "But I suppose this will have to do"

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty"

King Cailan and his guards turned while Mavis was startled by the sudden shouting. Duncan looked at her briefly to assess her well-being, then closed in to see the newcomer himself. Among the guards there was another knight, obviously, powerfully-built and clad in a polished chainmail armor displaying Highever's heraldry, two spears crossed point-up over a crackled dew drop, and a head of burning red hair. He was puffing doubled over his knees, face reddened with the effort and breathing hard, but Duncan still recognized him, slapping himself on the forhead

Despite the suspicious glares from his guards and their hands threateningly close to the hilts , the King looked pretty amused and allowed the knight enough time to recover before prodding, grinning widely. "Ser Gilmore, what brings you here lad?", oblivious to the fact that he was probably just a couple years older that the knight, and far less experienced in battle.

"Theryn Loghain requests your presence for matters that cannot be postponed, your Majesty. He asks you to join him in his tent asap." The knight looked deeply embarrassed for being liaison of such harsh message, and to King Cailan no less,, but King Cailan dismissed his worries with a shrug and a grin before the young knight could speak another word.

"And why would he send a _Warden-recruit_, of all people under his command?" Now the King was curious, the urgency of Loghain's words completely lost to him. Ser Gilmore stopped his fidgeting and stood straight and proud, all of a sudden the portrait of knight's valor and efficiency.

"I was with Lord Fergus out of the Theryn's tent when a messager from Highever turned in, bloodied and exhausted" A shadow haunted the knight's face but was hastily concealed "I don't know what news he heralded, but Theryn Loghain sent me to find you with all haste, your Majesty, and retreated inside to consult with Lord Fergus" Ser Gilmore stood straight up, his arms behind his back, the pommel of a solid bastard sword peeping from behind his left shoulder. King Cailan however did not see any need to rush or comply with the Theryn's 'request immediately; he turned to Duncan instead, slightly cocking his head on one side.

"Oh Maker, the old man will be the death of me! And Anora is taking after his grumpiness with every passing day." he whined "You should come as well Duncan, war-councils tend to be so boring with only Loghain to scold me" he pointed out cheerfully. Foreseeing Duncan's reply and attempt to escape the spider net he was weaving around him, Cailan quickly continued. "Don't worry about your recruit, Ser Gilmore here can escort her to the Wardens' quarters and see that she finds something more... fitting" Cailan briefly glanced at the Amell girl and her peculiar white hair, mentally scowling for the lack of '_epic'_ and '_glory_' on display: Grey Wardens were the heroes of legends and ballads, they were supposed to look grand after all, not like some ragged traveler just out of the hard road.

"Come on, it will be _fun_!" added the King, playfully patting Duncan on the shoulder. The Warden Commander repressed a loud sigh and turned to Ser Gilmore first, his tone as low and grave as ever.

"Take the recruit here, Mavis Amell, to Alistair and then inform Ser Jory and Daveth that they are to meet with me this evening at the Vigil's Fire. You as well, Ser Gilmore. Once you are done, wait for Viole's scouting party to come back and send her to me _at once_." commanded Duncan, secretly pleased at the knight eager nod and reliable look in response. Then he turned to Mavis, the mage-girl just a step behind him, looking so frail and haggard in the oversized clothes the quartermaster at the Circle Tower had provided her with when presented with Duncan's silver. She looked up at him with those wide, violet eyes of hers and Duncan felt his heart twist in guilt. 'She won't survive the Joining, I should have left her at the Tower, it would have been more merciful'

A voice he had almost forgotten replied coldly in his head, the anger barely restrained. '_Merciful_? Tranquility is not mercy, it's a fate worse than death. All the colors drawn from your life, the emotions sucked out in the blink of a moment and all that remains is an husk, and empty slave to the Templars' every whim!' She sounded exactly like she had twenty years ago on the steps of Denerim Royal Palace, him looking down on her, her vest flipping in the freezing winter wind. 'The last time I saw her'.

"Follow Ser Gilmore, Mavis. He is a fellow recruit, so stick to him until you meet Alistair. He is a Junior member of the Order and will be your supervisor in what is yet to come" Duncan noted the curiosity in the King's and Ser Gilmore's eyes, but ignored them. Warden secrets _remain_ Warden secrets, despite the clear exceptions his fellow brothers allowed themselves in Orlais, Nevarra and Antiva. "He is a good man and will help you whole-heartedly" Mavis maintained the eye contact for a moment longer, then averted her gaze and quickly nodded before bowing respectfully and shakily to the King and taking her leave with a puzzled Ser Gilmore.

The two of them wandered off into the camp, the mage-girl studying the ancient stronghold with fascination and its current inhabitants with wariness and worry, while the Highever knight, topping the lithe mage-girl a whole head and shoulders, shot quick glances filled with doubt and suspect in her direction. Ser Gilmore looked over his shoulder only once and was met with Duncan's glare, urging him to attend to his given duty without questions of sort. When the two recruits disappeared in the encampment, King Cailan turned to him and faked a yawn.

"Shall we comply with the grumpy old man before he sends out a search party, my friend?"


	2. 2) New and Old fellows pt-1

_This chapter turned out to be too long to submit it in one go, so I decided to split it in two. I also changed the time of narration from past to present, it might sound rough in the first lines since I had little time to proof-reading it but I think it's better suited to the kind of narration I have in mind. Tell what you think about it if you have read both chapters, the square ito submit your comments s just at the end of my writing *nudge*_

_Thank to all those who had the guts to read the first chapter, hope you will like this one_

* * *

Mavis moves past the imposing gold-clad King Cailan face down, brushing the sweat away from her brow and putting one step after the other as fast as her trembling limbs allowed her. The King's guard - no, Maric's Shield, she has read about the elite knights somewhere- moves aside, their hands close to the Mabari-shaped hilts of their longswords. Mavis falls beside the knight with wavy red hair who dryly nods at her before turning on his heels and striding into the bedlam of cursing soldiers and sweaty elves that was the Royal Camp.

The mage's eyes dart up and around, the high ruins towering over like stony fingers erupting from the muddy ground, hiding the sun behind arches and columns covered in thick layers of stained leaves; smoke fills her nostrils, rising up from a thousand cooking fires and one, both around her and in the narrow valley below, burning her eyes into red, teary orbs. She coughes, once and once more, and the red head knight - Ser... Ser G-something - looks at her over his shoulder, only a glance, then his eyes move past her, behind her, only to quickly turn back to the front, lost in the distance.

A messenger, a young elf with red hair as well, bumps into her but only stumbles and keeps on running, shouting a quick apology without looking back. Mavis takes a step back, then another, trying to recover her balance, but she feels weak, her legs' muscles burning from the continuous strain of a week-long march under Duncan's whip: she stumbles back and collides with a passing soldier, a knight maybe, his steel armour painful and cold against her shoulder blades. A curse and two strong hands shove Mavis back on her feet ungallantly, almost pushing the mage face down on the dirt: her hand reaches out and connects with Ser G-something forearm, she feels the knight instinctively retreat from her touch, her tainted touch, but support her nonetheless, while high, roaring laughter and the sound of clanking boots follows her, melding with the camp's cacophony.

More heads turn towards Mavis, she feels Ser G-whats-his-name stiffen up under her touch, his free hand helping her back into a proper demeanour, hesitant to even brush against her clothing, almost trembling: embarrassment? Fear, fear of _her. _More and more stop on their tracks, nudging their companions in the ribs and pointing at her, whispering and chuckling, her snow-white hair, the big violet eyes, a caged animal lost outside her prison. She feels them, the glares, boring into her skull and probing the depths of her thoughts, trying to bare any excuse to hand the weasel mage to the Templars' holy hands; they would catch her, oh yes they would, tear her clothes into pieces and force her to kneel on the cold floor and she would feel the lyrium brand pressing on her forehead and burning and then...

'_You are a Grey Warden now_' utters a voice in her head, making Mavis almost stagger on her feet. The knight shoots Mavis a perplexed look, the cold sweat covering her brow, the terrified eyes, the hand gripping his forearm frantically.

'_But after the Circle, and Jowan! They will reckon me an apostate, a __**maleficar**__!' _she answers feebly, flashes of her fate darting before her eyes '_They will turn me into Owain, a slave, a living dead! I... I...'_

'_You are a Grey Warden now'_ replies the voice, sounding more and more like Duncan's calm and grave one rather than hers '_You spent years and years reading, book after book after book, then remember. They cannot touch you, nor the Chantry, nor the King, nor Knight-Commander Greagoir... nor Ser Alrik'_

* * *

Memories of a life that now to Mavis seems to belong to another carved their way through the panic-induced confusion that clouded her thoughts. Mavis sees a young girl, maybe ten or eleven, reading her way through night after night, her black locks falling periodically on her face while she methodically ate tome after tome under the dim light of undying candles: poetries, history, law, novels and magic of course, the little girl stored every bit of news from the outside world and usually dreamt of living them every time she passed out from tiredness, resting on the very books she adored until some unknown, strong arms lifted her and carried her back to her bed, the sword of Faith adorning the cold steel of his cuirass.

_'For years you massed notions and knowledge, the only thing the Templars could not rob you of in the polished cage you lived in._' Duncan's tone eerily twisted to resemble Jowan's, his young voice steeled by a resolve Mavis had never witnessed in the real deal. '_Anders went miles in his escape attempts, and now that you are freer than he will ever be you want to toss it away for some foolish fear that has been drilled into your head? You are better than this Mavis._

Mavis remembered the young girl trying to reach a massive tome high above her head, huffing and puffing in frustration, her diminutive stature always a curse. The steel hands dropping on her hips and lifting her up in the air, higher and higher until her dainty hands closed around the old-leather binding, her fingers outlining a silver griffin on the front. _'What is this_" she had asked, and a gentle voice had chuckled and ruffled her hair, making young Mavis pout. "_It's an account of the Grey Wardens' deed ever since their foundation, my dear child. Quite the taste you have in books! If you swear me you won't tell anyone, I'll reveal you a little secret"_ had murmured the gentle voice kneeling, holding out his little finger for her to grab and shake with hers "_ Black and blue I swear and true, none shall hear from me but you_" whispered the girl and the gentle voice overlapping, Mavis' little finger engulfed in the steel one. After another quiet chuckle, the gentle voice continued.

"_Not even the Divine can overrule the Wardens, child. Their mages are completely free from Chantry law. Wouldn't you like that?_" Young Mavis's face brightened for a moment, than the light faded and all that was left was a sad face. The gentle hand stroked her cheek and the young girl could feel his warmness even under the cold steel. "_Why so sad, little one?_" he asked, locking his blue eyes with hers, their shades almost identical. Young Mavis bit her lower lip and tried to avert her gaze, but the gentle voice smiled reassuringly and Mavis felt the urge to open up with him.

"_Would I see you again? And Jowan, Anders? Alyse? Would I see any of you again if I became a... Warden?_" Unable to control them, teardrops formed at the edges of Mavis' vision and started flowing down her cheeks, but the gentle fingers dried them before they reached her chin. "_I don't want to lose you. None of you_" she sobbed, and Mavis felt two armoured arms closing around her and holding her against his chest, one hand reaching up to the back of her head and caressing it. The gentle voice let her sobs subside without releasing her from the embrace, the held Mavis by the shoulders and looked at her straight in the eyes. _"You won't lose me, child. And you won't lose any of your friends. Swear?_" he added, holding out his little finger.

* * *

"Is she alright? I mean, staring in the void like that..." Cheerful voice. Curiosity.

"I don't know, Warden, Ser. The recruit has been unresponsive for the last five minutes, shortly after Warden Commander Duncan put her under my watch, Ser." Upmost indifference.

"How many times do I need to tell you, Gilmore? No titles here, no nobility bric-a-brac, ah-ha. And stop being so formal, it spoils the air"

"Yes, Ser"

A grunt. "Maker, sometimes I wonder if- never mind. Hey there, recruit... What was that name... Amell? Can you hear me?"

"I told you, Ser, she is unresponsive" Disdain. Hostility.

"Very perceptive, Gilmore. And stop dragging her by the forearm, can't you see you are hurting the girl?"

Arm free. Nothing to support. Falling. Strong arms, cheese-flavoured breath. Helps to lean against a column.

"Hey" Worry? "It would not harm to show some of that gallantry you knights stuff your breast with, wouldn't it? I mean, come on, she's a lady!"

"She is a mage, Ser" Spite. Bottomless grudge. Slowly sliding on the ground.

"So is Viole" Change of tone. Grimness. "Should I send word to her, once she returns from the Wilds?"

"No, Ser" Hesitation.

"Then we stand on common ground, recruit. Go attend whatever orders Duncan appointed you with. The further away the merrier"

"Yes, Ser" Hasty steps. Relief. From both sides.

"Maker's breath, why can't we all hold hands and dance the Merigold? Not the darkspawn, filthy creatures, they would stain my hair, and can you picture a big. grinning Archdemon pirouetting following the rhythm? Bad, bad dancer that one, if you want my opinion... but _riiight_, you wouldn't even look at me, never mind the fervid disquisitions about the Archdemon's fondness of music"

A light pulsing in the back-half of Mavis' head. Steady, not exactly threatening even though extremely _familiar_. A constant companion for years, day after day in the halls and common chambers, under the undying crystals and in the dim, twilight light after another day of shared hardships. Under the freshly washed sheets first in the morning, before falling into the Fade at night, at lessons and in the dining hall, alone and surrounded by her friends; so long together and so easily forgotten, _eradicated, _after a single week sleeping under the stars surrounded by the aromas of a world mysterious and unknown, ripe for discovery, prone to spit at her and call her 'maleficar' and 'witch'.

"A-are you... a Templar?" The voice, her voice, sounds coarse, the words unwilling to leave the safety of her larynx. Mavis hears the man stiffen up, she doesn't dare to lift her eyes from the tuft of grass that has valiantly dug his way between two cracked granite slabs; he would recognize her, how could he not? She can almost feel the smite strike her, dissipate her mana and knock the breath out of her lungs, leaving only a pathetic slob of meat trembling on the ground.

A chuckle. "Discovered without even a proper look. Oh, my piousness must give me away, or my maniacal care for my hair. Thank you, Grand Cleric!"

Reinforced boots against the granite. Closing in. His feet entered Mavis' field of vision, his armour creaked as he knelt down beside her. '_He's going to smite me. Warden or not, he's a Templar, like Greagoir and Ser Alrik_'

'_Like Him'_ The breeze ruffles her hair and brings the gentle voice to her ears, the grass looks back at her with piercing blue eyes. Mavis averts her gaze and her eyes lock with hazel, worrying ones under thick blond eyebrows, a single drop of sweat trailing down his furrowed brow. His lips curl up in a shocking-white smile that reaches way up to his eyes.

"See? Not that troubling, isn't it? And you should not conceal those pretty big eyes of yours." Mavis feels a sudden heat creeping up her neck and spreading to her cheeks and quickly lowers her head. The Warden - no, _Templar_ - flinches and quickly raises his hands, shaking them in front of his face.

"No no, that's not what I meant... Yes, your eyes are big, but I didn't mean it like _that _big, you know. And they are not pretty - no wait, they _are_, I'm not suggesting they are ill-looking or anything... they are _particular_, particularly pretty I'd say - and now I'm just blabbing over and over again"

Something builds up in Mavis' breast, tearing through the apprehension attempting to crush her heart in its grip. The laugh ascends from her gut, at first suffocated behind her teeth and then exploding high and clean and liberating. The look on the Templar-Warden-_whatever's_ face was priceless, even better that the one on Anders' when Alyse first kissed him on the lips in the dormitory when... The laughter dies down at the memory, withering like a leaf against the winter frost, but the dark-blond haired man, cheeks flushed from embarrassment and a comical puzzled look on his face holds out a gauntlet hand.

"Alistair" At Mavis' confused look, he cocks his head pointing at the stretched hand. "You know, greetings and all the formal stuff"

Her forearm still aches from the King's vigorous welcome, her first ever. '_I don't want to have it tore off, but he'd probably reckon me impolite, and he has been so gentle...' _Slowly, Mavis outstretches her hand and sees it engulfed in the bigger man's one, but strangely he doesn't move up her forearm, nor is painful in any way, his touch soft and careful.

"M-Mavis, Mavis Amell" she whispers. The man's - Alistair's face brightens up and he rubs his free hand behind his neck, averting his gaze.

"Right, that's the name Duncan told us. A pleasure to meet you"

He breaks his grip over Mavis' hand and turns around, stretching his arms wide and looking at the arches surrounding them, a particular that only now is obvious to Mavis, not unlikely most of her whereabouts. She can hear the camp's commotion from up here, but it seems somehow distant, remote, softened by the vegetation surrounding the small clearing she has been half-carried, half-dragged to. The midday sky is clear and fresh above her head, the pale autumn sun sending his rays to warm her sweat skin, but in the distance, far away over the never-ending forest - the Korkari Wilds home to the man-eating Chasinds - she spots dark, threatening clouds and flashes reaching the treetops belows. '_Lightnings?'_

Mavis holds an hand against the pillar she's leaning on and pulls upwards, slowly regaining her feet only swaying a little. She hears a loud hit and she lowers her gaze to see Alistair slapping himself and quickly rummaging in his belt satchels, producing a small vial containing a blue liquid that hums at the borders of Mavis' mind.

"Pardon my manners, you could expect that by someone raised by a pack of stinky dogs" He mutters apologetically, throwing Mavis off balance "Not that I stink, I take great care of my bath routines. But anyway, try this, it should help you back on your feet." Sensing her hesitation, Alistair puts the vial into her motionless hand and closes her fingers around it: the feel of his hand brushing against hers shakes Mavis out of her stupor. She looks at the vial clasped into her fingers, then at Alistair, then at the vial again.

"Lyrium" She raises her dark-violet eyes at Alistair face, puzzled "Won't... won't you need this? To avoid... abstinence crisis?" Alistair's eyes widen and he shakes his hands again, trying to shield himself from the white-haired mage presumption with a comical result now lost to Mavis.

"No no, don't worry, no risk to see me craze around barking '_Gimme apostate blood_'. I technically never became a Templar, just trained under their oh-so-holy fist since I was ten. Duncan conscripted me one week away from the end of my ten-year training, just before they could appoint one of those ridicule "Ser"s before my name. 'Ser Alistar', can there be anything worse-sounding? 'Warden Alistair' is far better", and the armour is not that bad either."

Again, Mavis cannot restrain the laugh and it explodes from her lips in a matter of moments. At Alistair's now confused look, she simply chuckles "You were blabbing" and she feels an inner pleasure at seeing the Templar-turned-Warden rub the back of his neck in discomfort. The she bows her head, toying with the precious vial in her hands.

"Thank you".

* * *

"Let's see, where could we start your tour of the many wonders Ostagar has to offer?" Alistair rubbed his chin, quickly looking around from the base of the ramp, then looking back at Mavis and studying her clothing with a pondering expression depicted on his face.

"We should find you something more suitable, should we not? You are a Grey Warden Recruit after all, those loose-fitting clothes will provide little protection against the darkspawn. At the name of their ancient enemy, Alistair sees Mavis' body tense, but she dryly nods without meeting his raising eyebrow, glancing around at the colossal ruins with amazement barely concealed by fear. He gently presses and hand on her shoulder and points to his right, where a slightly bald man his shouting after a red-haired she-elf carrying a suit of chainmail. '_What is with elf and red hair, anyway?_'

Mavis trails along, but Alistair can tell she hears little of what he's narrating. '_Not that I would listen to what I am saying myself if I had a choice'_. No, her eyes move from the ruins to the faces of any passing soldier, a great deal of them; her head darts left and right, rarely resting over Alistair himself, always looking, always _searching_. '_For what? A threat?_' Few of the passer-byes actually meet her gaze, a few showing curiosity but most of them simply shrugging and continuing on their way, without shooting the mage a second glance. And still she looks, the worry carved on her fine features, her lower lip trembling from time to time. _'I hope she doesn't black-out like before, that would be most inconvenient with the darkspawn around. Or worse, Viole.'_ Alistair finds himself stealing glances at the frail-looking mage and questioning Duncan's choice. _'Can she survive this? The Wilds and the Joining after that? She looks so terrified... Maybe Duncan has made a mistake? No, what am I thinking, he's Duncan, he knows his lot. But at the same time he picked stick-up-my-arse Gilmore and that scoundrel Daveth, and don't make me start on my-wife-is-waiting-for-me Jory. Maybe Viole... no, stop that, he's Duncan, you won't doubt him for a pretty face and a blush'. _At the thought, Alistair feels the embarrassment trying to creep up his face, but he quickly subdues it pointing the quartermaster at Mavis.

"The old man can provide you with anything you might require, Clothing, weaponry, whatever might be necessary for your new life in the Wardens. And don't worry" adds the Warden, patting one of his satchel "Duncan gave me enough coin to clothe you up in proper Warden style, from head to toe. No Griffin tunic yet though" he says, pointing at his blue-silver surcoat displaying a rampant griffin "This is only for _real _Wardens, those who surpass all the trials" At Mavis' concerned look, he quickly adds. "Don't worry, you'll have your own in a blink of an eye".

When they depart from the quartermaster's stand, half an hour later, Mavis' hands are full with her new equipment. Alistair had been picky, especially after noticing that the mage had absolutely no experience in the matter; she looked around like a child shoved into a room filled with shiny, mysterious objects she had never seen before. Overall, the Warden feels satisfied: the armbands are of good steel and fitted her well enough, the boots of good Antivan leather and perfect for her dainty feet with a little stuffing at the sides. '_Dainty? Alistair, stop that'_. The rest had been trickier: Mavis had never used armour in her life in the Circle, not even some light leathers, and she looks frail enough to be crushed under the weight of a normal chainmail. After some meticulous thinking, he had resolved for a reinforced leather chestpiece, the remnant of a disassembled armour meant for some young squire, over a green wool tunic to protect her from the cold and a pair of dark, thick breeches with tight protections. '_She won't be able to face the darkspawn one-on-one branding a greatsword, but she should have moderate protection'._

Unfortunately, no helm was fit enough or light enough, so she would have to do without it. But the only piece of equipment that had really caught Mavis' attention had undoubtedly been the rough-looking wooden staff with a burned end. The quartermaster had told her that it had been retrieved by some darkspawn sorcerer, one of those called '_Emissaries_' who are feared even by their kin. Of course it has been cleansed of the Taint, had protested the quartermaster at Alistair's inquisitive look, but Mavis had looked completely enraptured by the staff: she had one of her gloves removed even before Alistair could reckon the complete absence of the Taint and her pale hand moving up and down the shaft, slowly, like she could hear it talk. Then she had grabbed the staff with a determination unknown to the Warden and nodded to him, pointing at the staff with her finger and looking at him with her violet eyes. Despite his humoristic chuckle, Alistair could still fell the chill run down his spine. '_Maker, that was... unnerving'_

_'And now look at her, staring at those Mabaris with all the innocence and naivety in Thedas!_' Alistair quickens his pace and stops beside the mage, leaning against the high fence still holding her newly-bought equipment and the staff in precarious balance, her eyes fixated on the big Mabari laying on the dirty hay just a few feet away. Alistair flinches, his Warden-sense alerting him against the presence of the Taint. The source his clear, it expands from the very Mabari before his eyes and many other in separate cages. He feels his rage mounting in his breath '_Such noble creatures, doomed to die the worst of deaths by those... monsters!' _The Archdemon tainted mouth opens in his mind, but he quickly shooes it with a shrug. Suddenly, he feels Mavis' eyes on him.

"Are those Mabari?" she asks eagerly, but her eyes betray her worry. Alistair nods dryly, then points at the hound before them. "They are, but this ones are dying. The darkspawn taint flows into their veins, and there is only one known cure to it. Unfortunately, it's not possible to make this animals Grey Wardens" he grimaces. The hound, on the other side of the fence, whines and weakly raises his head, his intelligent eyes have already started turning milky white. Mavis looks at it pitifully and Alistair can hear her muttering words in Arcanum, tapping her staff on the ground. Suddenly, a blue light envelops the Mabari and vanishes as fast as it had appeared: Alistair reads the begging in the mage's eyes and only then he realizes how young she must be, despite her white hair. '_Seventeen, maybe eighteen at best. Not much younger than me, but look at her'_.

Unsurprisingly, the Mabari slowly raises on his feet and trots to the wooden fence, barking weakly at Mavis and trying to lick her hand across the sticks that separate them. Alistair doesn't have the heart to grab the girl's hand and tell her that it is not safe, the Taint might corrupt her. '_Does it matter? She might die in a couple of days, we all might if the dragon shows up' _he grimly thinks, but seeing the content expression on Mavis face forces a thin smile over his lips. _'She knows it is to no avail, but who am I to break her illusion?'_.

Alistair turns to his right only to see the Kennel-Master, a hulk of a man with a fiery black beard trimmed with grey and a cascade of dirty black hair over his shoulder nodding approvingly, then striding towards them. The stank of feces and wet dog assaults his nostrils, but he does his best not to flinch, unlike Mavis who quickly puts and hand over her nose and turns to face the origin of such an aroma. Luckily, the Kennel-Master grins widely at her, showing a line of broken teeth and a cracked lip under the forest haunting his face. However, his grin fades when he looks at the Mabari and then at them.

"He's grateful for your help, mage-gurl" he states, his voice low and rumbling like thunder "But I'm 'fraid it will only delay the ineviteble if we do not act soon". The Kennel-Master shakes his head, but Alistair notices Mavis features harden with a glimpse of the determination he has witnessed at the shop. She steals a look at the suffering Mabari and then turns to the bearded hulk, no hesitation restraining her words.

"Is there anything we can do?" '_We? Did she just include me as well? Oh, alright'_. The Kennel-Master seems to reflect on her words, not really surprised, then he points at the Mabari Mavis just attempted to heal.

"One of your friends has 'lready accepted to go hunting in the Wilds for som' flower I think should help thes' poor boys" he mutters. "Wh'ther he returns or not, i cannot try to heal them if they're not restrained, 'nd this one has 'lready put up quite the fight. But he seems fond of you now, mage-gurl, so why don't you give it a try? You Wardens 'nd your immunity to the Taint 'nd stuff like that"

Mavis looks up at him, seemingly puzzled by the 'immunity' presumption, and Alistair tries to approach the Mabari himself first, taking the muzzle offered by the Kennel-Master, feeling the Mabari's eyes locked on him. However, as soon as he puts and hand on the gate, the hound crouches on all four and growls at him menacingly despite his obvious weakness. Alistair tries again, but the Mabari's growling only raises in volume. Eventually, he desists and puts the muzzle in Mavis' outstretched hands. "Watch out, at the first sound of hostility drop back. I don't want to see you bitten" surprising himself with the grade of concern in his voice. _'Where did that come from?'_


	3. 3) New and Old fellows pt-2

_Just went on with the present tense for this second part. I await your opinions on this *nudge* Further Author Notes at the bottom, so read it all :D_

* * *

Chapter 3: New and Old fellows pt.2

'_It's painful, white-lady. Bad darkspawn blood makes me suffer'. _The Mabari's milky eyes seem to plead, their sappiness erased by the poison flowing into its veins. _His _veins, by the looks of it. What did Duncan's book say? '_At best one dies in a couple of days, when the poison definitively damages the brain. At worst, the Taint transforms the subject, turning him or her in a ghoul, an empty shell driven by the horde's will, either exploited in crafting more weapons and armors or simply as walking meat reserve'. _A shiver trails Mavis' skin, her eyes dart to the black, purulent rends on the hounds' snout and skin, his fur covered in dirt and blood and black pus. The Mabari whines when Mavis produces the muzzle from behind her back but he doesn't reject her with a growl, the effects of her healing spell already fading: he lowers his head, still looking at her, and Mavis finds her own hands trembling while she fastens the muzzle behind his ears, his fur still soft and warm on that spot.

Unable to sustain such a sight any longer, Mavis springs up to her feet and feels her head spin for the sudden flow of blood, but she steps outside the kennel nonetheless without falling on her knees again. Outside, the Kennel-Master pats his calloused hand on her slender shoulder and nods approvingly, but before he can talk another voice raises from behind Alistair.

"So it's true what they say about Fereldans and Mabari" he mutters with a thick accent Mavis does not recognize. The newcomer pats Alistair on the shoulder and sneers. "Or maybe not, Mr. the-mongrel-almost-tore-my-wrist-off."

"Hey!" complains the Warden. The newcomer only shrugs and removes his half-face helmet, freeing a cascade of dark curls, then hands a big satchel he was carrying on his back to the Kennel-Master, his expression now grim and serious.

"Here are all the flowers I plucked on the way back here, Kurt. Hope you can save some of this mongrels". A low chorus of whines and barks rises from the kennels at the man's offence, but he doesn't pay them any mind. The Kennel-Master grabs the outstretched leather and opens it up, a wide grin forming almost immediately behind all that facial hair. "Maker suck my toes, that's a whole lot of them Warden! This might actually work". He stares at the contents a few more moments, allowing the bittersweet aroma of musk and mud and tales long forgotten to ensnare her senses, before handling the dark-haired Warden a satchel of his own, tingling with coin. In a matter of moments the Warden is counting them with piercing grey-blue eyes.

"I see. Always driven by your uninterested do-goodness Serpico" groans Alistair, rolling his eyes. The other Warden calmly finishes counting his reward and stores the coins in a bigger, heavy satchel, then turns towards Alistair.

"You know me Ali, can't help it when _Fereldan_ mongrels are suffering and no _Fereldans _give a damn about it, apart from you with your undeniable talents and the young girl here" he retorts with a wry smile, his accent hardening and sharpening his words. '_Not Orlesian, Leorah's speech was... rounder. Somewhere north, maybe Nevarra, or the Imperium... no, not the Imperium please!'_. Alistair snorts loudly, shooting his hands up in exasperation, and finally the other Warden takes notice of Mavis, bowing courteously with an hand resting on his heart, the first two fingers bent palm-wards. His grey-blue eyes don't lose the twitch of her face nor the little step backwards.

"A pleasure to meet you. You must be Mavis Amell, Duncan's latest recruit." Straightening up, he points his thumb backwards at a pouting Alistair. "I hope my infant brother here hasn't been harassing you too much" he adds, smirking oddly.

"Would you stop that?" grumbles Alistair, crossing arms on his chest and shifting his weight on the left leg.

"What? Calling you a brother? Sorry, can't help it" innocently replies Serpico, shrugging lightly and winking at Mavis. The mage looks at Alistair pouting face and then back at Serpico, the portrait of innocence, then back at a evidently pissed Alistair. She cannot stop a thin smile from curling her lips.

"Calling me _infant _brother! We Joined the order together, mind you"

"But I'm far more charming with the ladies" he chuckles, leaning nonchalantly against a long staff Mavis hasn't noticed before. A small chill runs down her spine, fear threatening to clutch her heart once more. '_Another mage? it cannot be, I thought-' _

_'Think girl, don't play the scared puppy!'_ urges a sharp voice in her head.

Mavis almost staggers on her feet, but in the brief moment of emptiness the pressure at the back of her head, due to Alistair's closeness, shakes her out of that same overwhelming fear. '_Only Alistair's_' she realizes, and refrains from slapping herself on the face for her foolishness. For security's sake, she closes her eyes and expands her consciousness towards the curly-hair Warden, Serpico, probing the flow of magic around him. _'Nothing, thank the Maker_' she sighs, drawing the two Wardens attention away from their bickering.

"Are you alright?" asks a concerned Alistair, raising an eyebrow in her direction. Mavis nods, then points at Serpico's odd staff, only now noticing the two feet long dentate black wide blade on top of it. '_Is that really steel, or veridium? It doesn't shine or reflect any light for that'_

"W-What is that you are wielding? Is that some kind of... spear?" she asks, causing the Warden's eyes to widen slightly in stupor, but only for a moment. Soon he is chuckling and deftly spinning the weapon in his hand by the shaft, stopping it horizontally before her eyes, perfectly balanced on one hand. Behind him, Alistair rolls his eyes and mutters "Exhibitionist". Mavis takes a step back reflexively, almost expecting so see the weapon crushing down at her, but Serpico reassures her.

"Don't worry, it won't bite you, it's a picky weapon. So far, darspawn are her favourite dish, can't really understand her" Another groan from Alistair, but Serpico smiles, motioning for Mavis to pick the weapon up with a nod. Hesitantly, the mage-girl stretches out a pale hand and grips the smooth, wooden staff and tries to raise it with all her strength, almost falling on her hinder quarters in the motion. Serpico bursts out laughing at her face.

"Light, isn't it?" he grins. Despite the surprise, Mavis finds herself nodding. It_ is _light, lighter than she would have expected herself. She tries to spin it in her hands minding the blade's length and the spear moves not unlikely the practice staves she had been trained with at the Circle Tower, slashing the air around her not as clumsily as she would have expected, trying to ignore the stab thinking of the Tower always gave her.

"You got a gift for it, Amell" bluntly states Serpico when she hands the spear back at him. "Maybe I should teach you a trick or two, once you are officially one of us." Behind him, Alistair tenses slightly, causing a fit of apprehension to rush through Mavis, but Serpico rescues her seeing her sudden discomfort.

"Do you know why it is so light, half-sister?" he questions, pointing her attention back at the odd spear now in his left hand. Mavis ponders for a minute, raising her index to rub against her lower lip the same way Jowan always teased her about. '_Jowan... No, stop that!'_. She forced her focus back at the matter at hand and after a few more moments she expresses the only reasonable theory that has popped up in her mind.

"It must be made of some extra-light material, almost lighter than the staff's wood itself. Is that spruce-fir?" She asks confidently. Alistair cocks his head at her, slightly confused and... amazed? Serpico simply nod in confirmation, a wry grin spreading again on his face.

"Correct. And good to see stammering on your words isn't the norm, Ali will appreciate that". Mavis' lower lip twitches in embarrassment and discomfort at the Warden's presumption about her ehm... _speaking isses_ and looks at the former Templar for support. '_Support from a Templar?' _cries a small in her head, but Mavis locks eyes with Alistair, who purposefully breaks eye contact a moment later and turns towards his Warden brother, punching him on the shoulder. Hard. Despite the small voice protests, the mage-girl feels a wave of heat flush up to her cheeks, turning them into pinkish tomatoes; baffled, she abruptly gives her back to the Wardens and faces the Kennel-Master, intent on turning a handful of the flowers Serpico delivered into a thin dust.

"S-So... w-will those f-flowers... you know... do their c-charm?" she stammers, fidgeting with her fingers. '_Maker's breath, what was that?' _she wonders, paying half-ear to the bearded hulk gruff answer in between her frantic thoughts and trying to quell the sudden colour on her own face. Only the man's last words completely pierce through the cloud surrounding her mind.

"... we cou'd try to imprint him to ya"

"What?" asks Mavis, shaken back to reality.

The Kennel-Master gives her a look, then sighs and attempts an explanation. "This lad's master got kill'd durin' the last fight against the 'spawn" he mutters, pointing a big finger at the same Mabari Mavis muzzled herself only ten minutes before. Mavis eyes run to the warhound and despite the pain he must feel, the Mabari weakly barks at her, aware of her attention. The growls approvingly.

"See? He 'lready fancies ya, mage-girl. Bet it would take no time to 'mprint him to ya". Mavis memories of the dozens of books about the Alamarri and their fondness for the big, furry warhounds disclose before her and she finds herself staring in the void, flashes of pictures of sturdy warhounds, sprinkled with an abundance of imagination flowing before her eyes. '_Extreme loyalty... life-long companions... battle-terrors... closest friends'_. Mavis flinches at the last thought, but for once her excitement overcomes the painful memories. She returns to reality only to find herself staring at an all-too-close Alistair, a puzzled look on his face. A few steps back, the Kennel-Master is looking at her like she was a mental; he gives a meaningful look at Serpico, but the Warden only shrugs.

"Are you alright?" asks Alistair. Mavis quickly takes a step back, colour flushing her face again, but she resolves to face the Kennel-Master, who is mixing the flower dust into a bowl of thick, reddish... _stuff_.

"Y-you think it could be done?" she asks still slightly off from the awkward return to reality, but obviously upbeat. The Kennel-Master raises his narrow brown eyes at her, studying her for a moment, then nods and returns to his concoction.

"Yeah, would hardly be the weirdest pair I've ever seen" He quietly stirs the bowl's content for a moment, then adds. "Jus' need som'thing of yours for the imprinting". All eyes on her, Mavis fumbles with the hem of her too-long tunic and tries to rip a long strip of cloth without much success, the cloth too thick for her bare fingers. Serpico cannot repress a chuckle at the mage-girl's committed expression, but avoids mocking Alistair when the former Templar politely offers an hand, slicing a two-fingers-width strip of cloth with his boot knife.

* * *

Alistair eyed Mavis worryingly as he makes way towards the southern edge of the main army encampment, striding among the lines of tents and cooking fires and platoons doing their daily drills, down a rough, muddy path that leads his steps towards a large clearing free of anything but a crowd of soldiers gathered around a common centre. The smell of faeces rising from the latrines thankfully dug out of his field of vision assaults his nostrils, together with the stank of _thousands_ of men and women heaping one over the other for weeks in a narrow space. He shrugs it off and steals another glance at the silent shadow trailing after him.

_'Look at her. Ten minutes ago she was almost jumping out of her shoes for that tainted Mabari, shimmering and beaming, and now... Maker, look at her. All because Serpico's tongue is longer than his brain. Nevarran fucker!' _Mavis, walking head down a few feet behind him, clutching her staff so hard her knuckles were paler than the rest of her already pale complexion, her lithe shoulders sagging into her all-too-big tunic. She does not look around, nor she meets the eyes of the curious staring at her hair, she barely looks up in front of her from time to time to see if she is still following him, and then sank back into her thoughts without a word.

'_Small wonder there, I was probably brooding as much as she is the first time; actually, more trying to keep my stomach from rolling upside down than brooding, but anyway... he could have been more tactful'_

Alistair slows his pace and let Mavis reach up to him and keeps up to her pace, pondering whether to break her self-imposed silence with one of the numerous witty remarks he has in store, but strangely, at the moment, none of them comes to him. He wonders if he should ask her if she 'was alright'.

'_Right, veery perceptive Alistair. You have done hardly anything else ever since you met her. Very charming.'_ Sighing under his breath in frustration, the Templar-turned-Warden keeps walking in religious silence.

* * *

_'Ah Ali, Viole wants you to take the new recruit to the southern training ground. Alec is already tutoring the soldiers there, that stuck up Gilmore will take the scoundrel and the other Highever knight.'_

Mavis keeps walking down the path barely aware of where she was heading, or rather, where Alistair is leading her. The Warden's back, covered in the blue and grey surcoat, is just a few feet up ahead every time she reflexively raised her head from the contemplation of her boots. She does not notice the quick glances he steals, nor the curious, confused looks from the surrounding soldiers; nor the chuckles, nor the shrugs, nor the nudges, nor the whispered pranks nor the loud laughs. She flicked her nose at the camp stench and almost failed in suppressing the urge to heave, but after getting used to it, only the rhythmic tap of her burned staff now links her to her physical body.

Mavis' whole consciousness is spreading out across the lines of tents, blindly searching for the most recent threat to her safe-being. She expands her innate magic awareness as far as her body can bear, lyrium potion and all, surveying for any flick of magic in the air, any variation in the stream that would indicate the presence of another mage. Correct, _that _mage, the one she whose face she doesn't even know.

_'She is a mage, Ser'_

_'So is Viole, should I send word to her after she returns from the Wilds?'_

_'_ _One of your friends has 'lready accepted to go hunting in the Wilds for som' flower'_

_'_ _Here are all the flowers I plucked on the way back here, Kurt'_

_'Ah Ali, Viole wants you to...'_

_'Take Amell here to her after the lesson'_

_'I think she has some formal welcome scheduled'_

Mavis doesn't notice Alistair take position at her side, nor his inner indecision on whether to talk to her or not. She is fighting off panic, and it is a battle she would hardly win.

'_She is a Warden, a Senior Warden to boot'_

_'Duncan will tell her and she will hand me to the Templars'_

_'They have no jurisdiction on you'_

_'After Jowan, Ser Alrik and the Knight-Commander? They are sending me to Aeonar...'_

_'She won't hand you in, nor will the others'_

_'...or make me Tranquil, the brand, no please not the brand'_

_'The Wardens take help wherever they find it, that's what Commander Duncan told you on the bridge'_

_'The Wardens won't accept a __blood mage__!'_

She feels the increasing pressure at the back of her head too late, just as the elderly woman in the long Circle vest, a refined piece of cloth dyed in red with straight golden yellow trimmings, its hems magically kept clean by the mud nad dirt she is walking through. '_Just like mine. Tore from my body'_. Her resentment is quickly quelled ad replaced by apprehension when it dawns to her who the elder mage actually is.

Worse. She knows Alistair.

"Warden Alistair, a pleasure to meet you young man" greets Wynne, bowing slightly and looking at him with a motherly look. Her eyes widen when she notices Mavis, the wrinkles around them levelling down. Alistair jumps in total unawareness, his warmest smile shining on his slightly tanned face.

"Senior Enchanter Wynne! What a coincidence, you might happen to know our newest recruit..."

"Apprentice Amell" dryly states the elder mage-woman, acknowledging her with a questioning look, her eyes quickly examining her hair and eyes and taking dutiful note of what she is seeing. "I take it that your Harrowing didn't go as Irving predicted"

The cinders of a untended fire blaze again and Mavis feels something stir up in her chest. She raises her dark violet eyes and glares defiantly at the Senior Enchanter before her, her worry for her current predicament pushed aside for the moment.

"_Actually, t_he First Enchanter said it was completed in _record _time" she stresses the word "despite the Rage and D_esire _Demons involved "again, the meaningful stressing. She pauses for a moment, then she continues, unaware of the baffled expression on Alistair's face _'What's with this girl now?'_.

"_These_" she says, pointing at her hair and eyes "Are the vestiges of my meeting with a Spirit of _Valor. _" The last word is almost and hiss, as she pleasantly look at the elder woman's face and at the evident surprise that flashes through her stuck-upness at every word she says. Lies. Wynne however doesn't lose her demeanour, but looks at her from upside down with that supposedly-motherly look of her like so many times during the last years in the Circle, in the halls and at the compulsory lessons.

"You must not forget your place, young Enchanter. _Magic is meant to serve man, not to rule over him_" She stops, meaningfully clearing her throat. "That the Warden Commander deemed you to join their ranks does honour you, but do not grow over-confident. Remember to follow the lead of those meant to that role, like the fine young man beside you." She adds, waving a wrinkled hand at a surprised Alistair, who first looks at her and then rubs the back of his neck in discomfort.

Mavis represses a scoff in Alistair direction, she had learned to see through Wynne's mischievous tricks years back, and the Warden was just another pawn to her stuck-up reproaches. '_And he doesn't deserve it'_. She sent her best withering glare at Wynne's direction, only to have the elder Enchanter turn towards Alistair and speak to him with her usual motherly tone.

"Take good care of her, young man. She was quite the troublesome kid back at the Circle, it would hurt me to know that she hasn't behaved accordingly to her position" That said, Wynne strides towards the royal camp, chin-up and grey eyes surveying the camp activities. Alistair follows her for a couple of seconds, then he turns to Mavis with an arched eyebrow.

"What?" asks the mage-girl, still blazing for the much-unwanted encounter. Alistair actually gulps at that, but doesn't back down.

"What's with you and the old lady there? You don't look like the best of friends"

Mavis averts her gaze, the fire quelling and her apprehension returning full force, strengthened by some of the memories meeting with Wynne has brought back to her mind.

"We had... a fall-out. Some three years back"

Alistair puzzlement is only fuelled by the half-answer and tries to dig in, despite Mavis' visible discomfort "What happened for you to be is such harsh terms with Wynne? She doesn't look so bad"

Again, the just quelled cinders fire back up and Mavis turns towards Alistair with an hard look, her voice slightly higher and making a few heads turn. "Of course she 'doesn't look so bad' to _you. _You are a _Templar!_ With all her speaking of being and Aequitarian, she's just the most rotten among the Loyalists and would have us all licking from the Chantry boots! And she wanted me to be just like her, to sell my freedom for '_a place to belong in the world_'. Thank the Maker someone opened my eyes in time!" Mavis ended up starving for breath, unaware of the little circle of bystanders that had formed around the odd couple standing in the middle of the path; nope, she glared right at Alistair, awaiting for a reply, an angry retort. '_Just another Templar, shielding his loyal pet'_

Alistair awkwardly rubs the back of his neck and looks around; when he speaks, his voice is calm, if only a little embarrassed. "Look, like I told you, I _never_ got to wear the fancy armour. I know about what happens in the Circle just like any other recruit: you know, the Confraternities, guard watch, something about that Harrowing of yours... What I want to say is that... well, I'm sorry you had to go through that much, but the Wynne I've known is quite the nice and helping old lady, never seen her being so... _cold_ to anyone. Nor you so _fiery_, in the few hours we have known each other, for that matter"

'_What?'_ Mavis' glare softens considerably, her mouth falls slightly agape. Ok, he wasn't agreeing wholeheartedly with her, well... rant, but to hear a Templar agreeing with something the Libertarians' Spitfire has to say! '_Former Templar recruit, Mavis. And what did he just say? About me being fiery...'_. Suddenly, Mavis feels rather self-aware and quickly averts her gaze, feeling Alistair curious hazel eyes looming over her.

"Ehm... well... t-thanks, I guess... and sorry for... you know... ranting at you" she muffles under her breath. At the edge of her vision, she sees Alistair rub the back of his neck, again, and his cheeks turn rather pinkish under the early afternoon sun.

"Hey you two lovebirds, find yourselves a tent and get going!" growls a harsh voice behind them. Only know they realize they have been standing right in the middle of the path during the whole time since Wynne's appearance, and they quick move to the opposite sides of the road hiding their faces, under a chorus of chuckles and quiet laughs, allowing a cursing servant to pass through with his cart.

Once the cart is gone and the crowd has dispersed, Alistair looks down at the petite mage-girl and manages a sincere smile. "Shall we move on? The spawn can grow quite impatient without their beloved Wardens'

Slightly tensing at the prospect, or better, only now fully realizing what she would have to face _before_ the dreaded Senior Warden, Mavis manages a small smile of her own. "Lead the way" she offers, waving at the path ahead with her burned staff

* * *

"So it's true?"

Duncan dryly nods "Highever has fallen to Arle Howe's treachery" He then furrows his brow. "L-Theryn Cousland won't be pleased to know that the rumour is already spreading"

"It's an army camp, Duncan. What did he expect? For the messanger to just keep quiet after a little pushing?"

"He should have locked him up until they were ready to announce it. The troops' morale is going to drop down dead"

"If Uthermiel appears, morale will not be the only thing to drop dead. The Fool King will too. Worse: he could manage to strike the fatal blow. He would deserve the title of Emperor of Fools for that"

"Stop that Viole"

"What?"

"_That!_ Fooling the King. You never know who is listening, even here at our camp"

"Right, right... but it's true, and you know it as well"

Duncan shakes his head and points to the map laid out before the two of them. "The King intends to face the Horde in the first line, amidst our ranks. It goes without saying that we shall look after him, but it won't hurt to say it once more" He gives his second-in-command a meaningful look, but Viole ignores it, her green eyes focused on the battle plans before her, then taking up a parchment.

"They outnumber us two to one, at least"

Duncan raises a thick eyebrow, the news is hardly a surprise, but the mage's features remain inscrutable. "You should'nt have kept quiet at the meeting"

Viole huffs, eyes still fixed on the vellum "I stank, and Loghain won't believe anything we say, except that we are jubilant Orlesian spies attempting at Fereldan's independence" She loudly slaps her fingers against the parchment and drops it on top of a small pile of them. "Bah, useless reports"

Duncan takes a sip from his jug and studies the detailed map for a long minute in utter silence, trailing a bare finger on the edge of the Wilds and little beyond.

"What about the tower?"

"It's little more than a crumbled ruin submerged by thick layers of vegetation. We didn't get too close on the way back, it's just off the presumed path of the Horde but you can never say with the smaller bands. I sensed a few slouching around, a few dozens here and there. And the Veil is surprisingly thin"

Duncan winces slightly. The nightmares of twenty years before are still vivid in his imagination. "Demons?"_  
_

"Not necessarly. But it can mean anything good"

"You intend to send the recruits to retrieve those treaties, am I wrong?" Duncan nods dryly, eyes still staring at the map. '_The Horde will be lead by a Vanguard, at least, if not Uthermiel himself. We are too few... and the King won't hear of strategical retreats. Only Denerim could harbor the whole army in a all-out fight with the Horde, maybe South Reach if properly strengthened. Redcliffe as well, but only if the Horde turns west, which is higly unlikely. A retreat would allow time to gather more forces, but the Empress won't allow the Wardens to cross the border without the chevaliers, and Loghain won't let it be. There is no way out of Ostagar'__  
_

"We should place someone beside the new Theryn as well"

Duncan is shaken back to reality, his knee jointly aching from standind still too long. He looks straight at her, then nods again grimly. "Right, the last Cousland must be protected, after all..."

"...he is the next in line. If you still intend to keep lil' Alistair out of the ring"

Another meaningful look, dark eyes meet green ones. "What?"

"Nothing Viole. Just remember Sophia Dryden and King Arland"

Viole scoffs, tucking a stray lock of chestnut hair behind her ear. "If we must not dwell in politics, then just leave the Fool to his fate"

"I'm not speaking about that. They need to be protected, both of them. Theryn Loghain too, but you are right, he won't trust us"

"So what?"

Another meaningful look, the green eyes fill with exasperation. "Speak your mind, I haven't enough alcohol in me for your Rivani bric-a-brac "

"You fancy him. You always have"

Viole's face turns slightly redder "Oh, shut up. He just lost his family to a long-date friend, in case you have forgotten"

The reminder brushes the small smirk off Duncan's tanned face and his expression turns grim once more. He brushes his beard thoughtfully.

"Alec maybe"

"Right, give the Berserk body-guard duty and have your VIP hacked into pieces. Serpico" Now it's Duncan's turn to look at her and at her questionable choice.

"Serpico?"

"Yes, you have something against Nevarrans? No? Good. He is a terror with that fancy spear of his, plus dragonbone cuts through 'spawn's armour like a knife in molten butter. He is the best choice"

Duncan ponders for half a minute more, quickly examining all the Wardens at his disposal. The Seniors, like Viole, would be needed on the first line in case the Archdemon showed up; on the other hand, Alistair's skills would make him a valuable protector... "_No, not Alistair_" Duncan's thoughts trail back to that lone night twenty years ago, on the steps of Denerim's Royal Palace. _"Not Alistair"_

"Be it as you may" he finally agrees. "Your opinion on the recruits?"

Viole pouty lips break into a grin and she crosses arm over her griffin surcoat. "Jory is a skilled coward, Daveth a leering weasel with decent aim and that Gilmore should stop glaring at me if he holds his eyes dear. The usual bunch, I'd say"

Duncan's face remains serious. "And the mage?"

"The Amell girl?" she asks, tilting her head "She was six-years old or around that when you recruited me, so I cannot vouch for her from previous experiences. If what Irving told you isn't inflated, then we have got quite a number in our hands. _Blood magic _included"

"You don't seem to share her worries"

"For I do not. Blood magic isn't bad in itself, it only requires a strong will and a bit of acumen not to fall in the first Demon's hands and be turned into some Abomination. Demons pester every mage, those who dwell in blood magic are only a bit more _receptive_, but they are not bound to be puppets. Look at the Tervinters"

Duncan arched an eyebrow at that. Viole rolled her eyes.

"Alright, they sacrifice innocents for their rituals, you got a point there. But they are undoubtedly far more advanced in the Lore than any Circle in the rest of Thedas, White Spire included. And you know that the tale of the 'Independent Ander warriors fighting for freedom' is only a tale better than I do."

Duncan sighed, but he knew that his Second was right. Again.

"She is terrified that we will hand her back to the Templars"

Viole's eyes widen in shock for a moment, then she groans. "Is this girl mental or what? Like we would allow those Chantry pigs to turn her into a brainless husk, a zombie. Who does she think we are?"

'_Just like you would say'_ Duncan patiently nods. "I already told her, but I suppose it will sound more reassuring coming from the Order's top mage" He lets Viole beam for a moment, then he continues "I warn you, be prepared if she somehow freaks out, I don't want any trouble here at the King's camp"

"Don't worry, I'll engulf her with my natural kindness"

Duncan made it for the tent's entrance and flipped it open, staring at the sun's slow descent toward the treeline. '_It will be over soon, one way or the other'_ he thought for a moment, staring at the vastness of the Korkari Wilds hiding the horizon and the endless Horde from sight.

"Just like I feared"

* * *

_Some thoughts and info on the Characters in this chapter. First, Mavis is 16, so there is reason when Duncan said she was pretty young for undergoing her Harrowing. Second, yes, she is a blood mage, like many of you will have guessed from her mental monologues in the previous chapters, but she usually doesn't stammer so much in her speaking; however, combining the fear of being 'branded' a Tranquil, being secluded in the Tower for more than ten years and the events of her Origin (which will be quite different from canon, but will include Surana and Anders and Cullen too, plus another couple Templars you might have guessed) she's actually extremely nervous and this will haunt her for quite a long time._

_Second, I decided to give a little more space to the Wardens in Ostagar. Senior Warden Viole, Berserk Alec and some other will make an appearance, and I don't know if I will be including Riordan or just fill his place with some OC. Serpico is the OC mentioned in the summary, by the way, and his role will increase accordingly in the next chapters. _

_Third, I really despise Wynne's hypocrisy. A lot. Particularly on the matter of Blood Mages and abomination and mage's rights. Maker, she's an ABOMINATION herself throughout most of the game, and she goes on ranting. She really gets under my skin_

_Like always, my sincerest thanks to anyone bold enough to read my scribbles!_


	4. 4) Ostagar's Eve

**Chapter 4: Ostagar Interlude**

I look down on them from the platform, the shadow of Andraste's statue almost splitting them in half, lingering over the thousand statues that are my men. _My _men, not _Father's_. No, I am wrong once more, my dear Oriana. Highever's men. Soldiers, stuarts, scouts, riders, blacksmiths, couriers, everyone from my second in command, ser Naios Gilmore, red mane now salt-and-pepper, to the last of the elven servants. All here, before me, Mother, to hear my words. They want their crushed hope to refuel, their shattered lives repaired. I can give them none of this, Father, not now.

They want revenge. They want blood to be spilled over the bear-emblems of Amaranthine. _That _I can give. Of that, there will be plenty.

Cailan is just one step behind me, his golden armour not reflecting on his smile for once. Good. Maric's death should have taught him at the time and now the seed has been planted in more fertile soil. _Betrayal_.

The Chantry Mother whispers in my ear, soothing words of an old woman clinging to an absent god. I don't even look at her. My place is not among the privileged and the clerics, haughty hyenas growing relentless over fresh spoils.

One step forward. Another. I'm on the edge. I look at each one of them, heads bowed, shoulders slouched, eyes red with shed tears, fists clenched with rage. I look at each of them and I see myself, how I would rather be. But my eyes are dry and steeled. There will be time later.

I had the same thought the morning I left home.

"Men and women of Highever, brothers and sisters" my voice croaks only at the beginning. I remember my lessons Mother.

"Humans and elves, all of you, my friends" The Mother winces considerably, considering an elf a 'friend', even a living being, an act worthy of the lowest pits of hell. At least I won't be alone anytime soon.

"We have been called from our homes, from our lands and from our beloved in the direst hour, to face the greatest threat _we_, each one of us, has ever known. We have gathered under the flag of good King Cailan" I oblige a nod at the mournful man " to defend what we hold dearest from the unholy havoc brought upon us."

The immense crowd stirs, some murmur, the darkspawn threat imminent despite their - _our _- suffering.

_"Slaying all those darkspawn without you is going to be tiresome, dear sister!"_

"We have marched head high towards the obvious enemy, because we are the blood and lymph of Highever, we _are _Highever and its laurels, and we stand defiant against whatever places itself between us and our duty. Our word in one and we'd rather die than spit on it, our vows enforced against any odd. Loyalty flows through our veins and sharpens our swords"

_"In Antiva, a woman fighting in battle would be... unthinkable"_

_"Is that so? I always heard that Antivan women are dangerous"_

_"With kind words and poisons only, my love"_

"We left our dearest in the safeness of a pit of snakes. We have showed our back to who we believed, _I _believed to be a valuable ally, a wise man and a treasured friend of the people of Highever and of the Couslands, and he has proven himself to be a creature so wretched that I would welcome the darkspawn as allies to crush him under my foot."

More murmurs, the King looks at me quizzically slipping off his circumstantial mask. I don't care. If he wishes to make a fool - more of a fool - of himself, he is welcome to it. Too bad Loghain can't straighten him up, with a strong sovereign Highever... Highever would still be whole.

"For there is no inhuman deed than to break one's vows and step over the bodies of those called friends to achieve one's base goals. _Betrayal!"_ I thunder, shaking my man from the torpor that has befallen them since that blighted messenger has started spreading rumours. "For betrayal we suffered and by betrayal my great and beloved Father, Theryn Bryce Cousland, has rejoined his ancestors, together with my Mother, Theryina Eleanor, and - " Here I crack, I can't help it. My vision becomes glossy for a split moment, but I push the tears back.

"_Our people looks up to us, all of us Couslands, for example and inspiration. We will never let them down my son, either in peace or war. Even if we are scattered and thrown into the dirt, we remain Cousland until the very end and beyond. Remember our family motto and shape yourself after those words"_

"- and my wife Oriana, and my beloved _Oren_-"

_"Is there really going to be a war, papa? Will you bring me back a sward?"_

"- a child of only _six_, mercilessly hacked down by a venomous snake named _Rendon Howe_. His man mercilessly butchered my family and all those left in Castle Cousland: women, children and elders' blood now paves the stones over whom generations of our people have proudly strode, massacred like cattle to cover up Howe's deed and blame whomever he chose!"

"His men feast over the bodies of our beloved and force themselves in our homes like foreigner conquerors! They deny burial and leave our families and friend to rot and be devoured by the beasts!"

"I could not prevent the act of the darkest vileness. I could not save your families, I could not save mine either, whose lives I treasured far more than my own. But I hereby _swear_ on my honour as a Cousland and as a Father, Brother and Son, before all of you" Highever sword is out of his scabbard and resting against my chestplate " that I will slay Rendon Howe with my very hands, and with him all those who took part in this attack against Highever!"

Hundreds of swords now shine under the afternoon sun, roars heavy with rage, pain and utter sufferance float high above us, back to our defied home, to the ears of the very man now sitting on Father's seat.

"I would turn my horse against Howe this very moment if, by doing so, I would not break my vows myself! All of us have sworn to protect this land from its enemies, being them within or lingering on our borders, and I won't forsake my duty as a Cousland and a citizen of Ferelden only to become myself like _he _I have taken as a oath to vanquish!"

Confused looks from many, the necessary cold shower. We cannot afford mass-desertion at the eve of the decisive battle. _I _cannot afford it.

"Tommorrow we shall drive the darkspawn down to their wretched lairs. Tommorrow we shall stand side by side with our kin and Fereldan brothers and the Grey Wardens, under the doting eye of our beloved now rejoined with the Maker! Let this battle be a warning to anyone wishing to raise arms against Highever and its people!"

"Once our duties will be accomplished, once we can stand proud to the memory of those no longer with us and those yet to come, only _then _Rendon Howe and his flock of murderers will taste our steel and choke with the blood of the wrongly felled!"

"_Family, Duty, Honor!_" Highever sword is up above my head, my eyes meet bearded faces and clean-shaven, wrinkled and smooth, scarred and untouched. Green, hazel, chestnut eyes sparkle with righteous fury than would put a Knight-Commander to shame, if he only knew what shame was.

"_Family, Duty, Honor!_" roar my soldiers, my men, the only family I have left. The Chantry Mother takes a step back in bewilderment, Cailan is lost in his dreams of glory once more, the same ten years old child to whom I read in Aldous' library about griffins and dragons. Only now in golden armour. And leading an army.

Loghain nods curtly at me and leaves to his tent without looking back while the Chantry Mother tries to entangle me with her ramblings, Ser Cauthrien a silent figure at his heels. Our greatest asset against the blighted creatures, and his look sends a shiver down my spine. The Hero and the Child, and I am right in the middle of the fray.

Mother, Father, Elissa. Oriana, my love, little Oren. There _will_ be time later.

* 0 *

"_Family, Duty, Honor!_" bellowed Ser Gilmore, the roar of the Lord's men deafening and slightly annoying after a whole day spent between the Wilds, Viole's reproaches and nannying the latest recruits. The Cousland's family motto resounded three times more before Lord - _Theryn, his father has hit the bucket -_ Fergus stepped down from the platform with the posture and demeanour of a man born and breed for command.

'_His guts are probably ablaze with pain, yet he shows none of it- well, almost none of it' _ pondered Serpico in respectful silence, a few metres away from the crown-head and the bulge of noble expressing their dutiful condolences, whispering soothing words and carefully patting the Theryn's shoulders, grave faces a somewhat genuine. Really unexpected. The Couslands must have been popular before Arle Howe had decided on shortening them of their head.

'_What a fine specimen of noble-head that one. Would thrive in Nevarra. Or just end up dead at his own dining table. Much more likely'._ Duncan stepped forward when the Theryn finally emerged from the crowd of well-meaning vultures, the Warden-Commander's tanned face stern but shadowed by grief and the slightest contempt. Good friend with the late Theryn, or so was murmuring Vanon in the ear of Alec, the dwarf caressing his greying beard absent-mindedly. Once a politician, always a politician.

Theryn Fergus slipped out of etiquette and lingered more than mere moments with the Commander, forearms clasped in warrior-salute. Murmurs would rise, but from what little Serpico had grasped from the noble's speech the new Theryn did not seem to mind. A fair minded noble? Hard to believe. But the Chantry cow's face when he had called the elves '_friends_' had been absolutely priceless.

Viole was curt and painless, but again the Theryn exchanged fond words with Ser Gilmore. The knight was torn between bear crushing the one man he had grown up admiring and sinking into mourning for the death of the Couslands. The Theryn's younger sister, some Elissa Cousland, seemed to be the main topic of their verbal exchange, and both men's affection for the dead girl could not be misunderstood. Then the Theryn was gone, and Serpico finally turned towards the fidgeting presence at his right.

Mavis Amell resembled the sheep surrounded by the pack of wolves - even though the Wardens could be considered _wolves _only in the close proximity of a larder. She nervously rubbed her left bicep through the sleeve and eyed _everyone _with maddening suspicion. Fair enough, not Alistair - uhm - and not Duncan. Nor him or that wandering keg of Alec Helmi. Regarding the rest...

She had suddenly tensed like a spring on the way back from the drilling ground where Alec had joyfully instructed wary recruits and conscripted farmers-turned-militiamen into the fine art of Darkspawn-slaughtering and Taint-evading. Mortalitasi's withered asses, many of those men had more than an issue with personal _hygiene. _The rotting genlock's smell was almost pleasanter than that one Denerim drunkard's. Out of the blue, she stopped her strained chatting with Serpico himself and had jerked her head up, eyes wandering in the distance.

Not three minutes later, that she-monster Viole had stepped into them like a lion on the prey. Namely, little Mavis herself. Senior-monster-Warden had barely acknowledged Alistair and him, outright ignored Gilmore's snorting and Daveth's snarky remark over 'the view' - so hopelessly blatant and tactless, poor sod - and had started conversing with the terrified girl with the casualness of a fat cat cornering the mouse. She didn't do so much as looking at her snow white hair, but seized little Mavis's stiff right arm in her clutch and started questioning her without mercy. Nothing fancy, just about the weather, old companions at the Circle Tower, some old hag called Wynne - at whose mention Mavis seemed to flare if only for a moment -, Duncan's renowned be-the-best-travelling-companion skill and so on.

Not one word on the circumstances around her recruitment, not one direct question about her magical might or any kind of magic-gossip. Just hints dropped here and there with that totally unnerving smirk of hers, barely showing a thing line of white between her lips. Serpico had recognized a master at work at first glance the time he had undergone Viole's questioning himself, prior to his Joining. Mother had been one as well, and Viole was in her league.

Almost.

Poor Alistair had apparently emptied his sack and a loaned one when questioned, judging from his profuse sweating and dazzled expression immediately after. Serpico had sprinkled half-truth with a generous dose of lies and deceptive info.

Little Mavis was completely oblivious of being played Alistair-way. Either that or she was the greatest actress Serpico had ever seen in his adventurous twenty years in Thedas; much more likely, Viole was paving the way to the most spicy and hidden bits for a later, more private talk. Mage to mage. Poor girl.

Fair enough, though. The white-haired sixteen years old had showed more guts than either Daveth or Ser Jory when confronted with her first darkspawn body. The just amount of flinching, lips and dainty nose curled in disgust at the peculiar stank and a baby step back while Alec eagerly thrust a borrowed blade in the corpses 'soft spots', where the armour was either thin or non-existent: neck, armpit, groin. back of the knee, abdomen's sides, the usual lot.

Then she had apparently grown curious herself and despite Alistair's words of concern for 'being-Tainted', she had poked the genlock at length with her newly-acquired stick, murmuring incomprehensible words under her breath and observing small sparks of lighting run through the motionless body. Alec had roared in laughter at little Mavis's 'focused' face, biting her lower lip in an adorable pout and tapping her chin with her index, startling her; Alistair had remained concerned - softie - throughout, once or twice even outstretching an hand but not daring to touch her.

Ser Jory had eyed her like she was affected by some exotic mental disease - he who had gagged repeatedly his first time at the drill square. '_Will probably paint his underpants at the first charging Hurlock'_. Daveth had one weird look on his face, like an appraiser studying throughout an offered cattle.

Jovially, Ser Gilmore had lead the chorus of murmurs and whispers around the prone mage, and none of it regarded her new clothing or the short-low-ponytail she had combed her hair into with the aid of some green fabric she conjured from thin air, leaving stray locks to fall over her face - _and_ revealing a pale neck that had unmistakably caught Chantry boy's attention. Definitely.

Serpico grimaced at the fresh memory. They would venture the Wilds the next morning, just the six of them - Duncan was one for tradition, fair and square, but he somehow tended to be overprotective with Alistair. And two Junior Warden are better than one.

Any backstabbing at the wrong moment would very-likely result in atrocious deaths for them all... and something far worse for little Mavis. 'I _suppose Duncan will break the news to her next morning. At least the necessary part of don't-let-them-take-you-alive'._

The large audience slowly disbanded and Viole seized little Mavis outright, cutting off any opening for a swift escape, and '_gently_' dragged her towards the Warden camp, ensnaring the poor girl senses with meaningless chatting about her personal tent and soup and the other mage - "_Irving, that sly fox, hasn't been caught nibblig at the Commander's Rivaini chocolate yet?- _. Meaningless to to any passing eavesdropper, at least. Viole had the astounding - and creepy - ability of probing into one's skull without the target even spelling a single word. Creepy she-monster.

Serpico, on the other hand, awaited for Ser Gilmore to end his chatter with some more Highever knights just for the proper amount of time before jumping in and snatching him away with the fakest smile ever plastered on his face.

'_On Warden business_'. The wicked power of half-truths.

As the sun ,moved down to the west on his last arch for the day, Serpico led the haughty, mage-hating recruit to the same platform where Duncan planned to hold the Joining in less than one day. To Serpico's chagrin, the knight looked evidently annoyed and put off by what he may consider 'the odd behaviour of my odd commanding officer'.

Serpico burned him on his tracks as he opened his mouth to complain. He gave him a no-nonsense look and went directly to the point. No use to run around in circles and bite one's tail.

"You obviously have issues with our mage companions, Ser Gilmore. I'd rather like an explanation. Nothing too fancy, just be your usual cocky self".

The knight's cheeks turned rather pink while he swallowed and angry and prideful retort, his sword-hand clenching into a crushing fist; Gilmore sent him a withering stare, one that Serpico blatantly ignored, examining with outmost attention his nails and awaiting an answer.

A minute later, the knight broke the silence. His voice reeked disdain and contempt, whether aimed at him or at the topic in question Serpico could not say. Probably at both.

"With due respect, Warden Serpico, the Order does not judge or probes into a recruit's past life. The Order is a fresh new start for criminals, nobleborn and _lowlifes_ alike" The last chip purposely directed at him. Serpico suppressed a chuckle at the knight's hilarious haughtiness.

"Viole must be losing her touch if she hasn't drilled into your thick skull that no _personal_ issue must endanger the Order, under any circumstances. Your utter contempt for our magic sisters entirely falls under this voice, and since you will be required to work, fight and live along either of them as soon as you officially join the Order, such childish behaviour is unacceptable"

"_Childish?_" hissed the knight between his teeth, taking one step forward menacingly. "Your naivety towards the threat they represent is _childish, Warden_" He then turned on his heels and attempted to stride away, only to have a heavy hand rest on his shoulder and forcefully spin him around.

"I don't recall having given you any leave, Recruit" stated Serpico, grey-blue eyes resembling a glacier about to trample over the meaningless creatures on his path. Namely, a stuck-up lad in polished armour answering to the name of Gilmore Roland. His Nevarran accent twisted his otherwise even words, giving them an intended, ferocious edge. "The Order is not your personal playground, ripe for harvesting glory and honours. You being a knight matters to us less than Alec's latest belch: as long as you prove to be a valuable asset for the Order, no one will question you. Be an asshole towards your brothers and sisters? We will hack you down. Is that understood?"

Gilmore felt a pronounced uneasiness radiating from his belly right up to clutch his throat. Elissa's fate was momentarily forgotten straining not to avert his gaze from Warden Serpico's, desperately trying to win this silent battle with willpower alone. And failing inevitably.

Gilmore turned his head to the side, flushed with repressed anger directed both at the disquieting Junior Warden in front of him. _This Nevarran asshole playing all mighty paragon of the Grey Wardens being a Junior himself, scolding him like some... pampered Orlesian puppy without knowing a damn about what mages were truly capable of, mass-murdering machines wandering free to bring further havoc upon the maimed lands only because they could, shooting lightings from their fingertips and cutting themselves up and boiling innocent Templars from within just because so without any glint of mercy, living fostered lives in their ancient tower with every comfort while good old-school fellows like him and his father had to work themselves out to reach a safe position and earn a shred of respect. Howe employed mages, everyone knew, he didn't even attempt to conceal them, and they had destroyed Highever and killed Theryn Bryce and Old Nan and Rupert and sweet, dear Elissa, his Elissa, now a charred body at the leisure of those robed abominations..._

"Recruit, listen up! Whatever mages did to you it's your business, I couldn't care a mummy's foot. Work it out, release some stress, find a woman and have your way, I don't care. Endanger us tomorrow and you will regret it. Disobey Viole or any Senior Warden and it won't be nice. Vouch your opinion, speak your mind, dance the Remigold, but don't distress little Mavis any longer o I will have your hide. Clear?"

'_Find a woman and..._' Wasn't he mourning his lovely Elissa, Gilmore would have flushed a deep shade of red. Instead, Serpico's words only added wood to the fire, but venting out would have to wait. '_I don't know if I could take him right now'_. Gritting his teeth for anyone in a mile radius to notice, Ser Gilmore swallowed his pride and nodded grimly, glaring daggers and promising retaliation.

"Crystal, Warden"

* 0 *

'_One blighter down, time to track down that eager supply sergeant Jodie'_

Restraining the spring that threatened to transform his steady walking into a popular swing-dance, Serpico descended the platform leaving Gilmore alone to ponder on a new line of behaviour. He actually saw little need to report the knight's issues to Viole, who probably knew already as much from her preliminary probing of any recruit and was undoubtedly having the time of her live squeezing little Mavis for every spill of information. Again, poor girl.

He purposely avoided passing nearby the kennels. That rough hulk of a Kennel Master had taken a like to him after he had delivered him a full satchel of the medicine flowers for an handful of coins, and was trying to convince him on taking up one of the soon-to-be-healed mutts. He respected Fereldans' awe for the loyal, sturdy warhounds and their value on the battlefield had been proven time and again only in this campaign against the 'spawn, but... he was conflicted, truth be told.

On one hand, if one was to blindly trust the hulk, it was far likely for one of the canine fellows to imprint on him, after his deed with the flower. Mabari were extremely intelligent and perceptive animals, at times even more than a human regarding their chosen Master. Such a companion would hardly be an hindrance and would allow him to 'blend in' far more easily in this foreign land; Fereldans showed a great deal of respect for those capable enough to earn a Mabari's unbreakable trust.

_'On the other_ _hand'_... he wasn't sure if he really desired to simply 'blend in'. For an _exile _such as himself finding a new, hospitable home in a new land for a fresh start wasn't the worst of prospects; furthermore, he appreciated the matter-of-factly view shared by a large slice of Fereldan's population, one that had apparently infected many of the foreign Wardens that had lived for extended periods of time on this side of the Waking Sea - or the Frostback, pick your choice. Still, he felt like he was losing more and more of his heritage with each passing day.

Serpico still dearly treasured the family dragonbone spear and the amulet with Mother's and Father's portrait, but he had been stripped of everything else after his recruitment in Cumberland. Forcibly conscripted, hauled on a ship heading towards Denerim with little more than his clothes and his treasures, still reeking for the guards' blood... Not the fresh beginning portrayed by the novels Mother was so fond of.

'_At least here the Warden welcomed me like one of their own'_ grimly considered the Nevarran Warden. _'Alistair is as naive as a ten-years old, but at least not as childish or exuberant as that half-brother of his! Ah, Prince Alistair, surely sounds awful. No wonder Duncan wants to keep it a secret from the bickering nobles, even though I'd bet my spear against a broken cupboard that Loghain knows the truth, and the oh-so pious Grand Cleric as well... hope Duncan is sensible enough to keep the lad out of the Game'_

Serpico, like all good-mannered Nevarran boys, had been taught extensively of the breadth of the Orlesian 'Grand Game', with silent and active agents spying all the major countries and sovereign powers of Thedas and ready to kidnap bad boys who didn't heat their soup. 'Fereldan' core Wardens were all Orlesians, save Alec Helmi, second son of House Helmi of Orzammar, Champion of the Provings and Bane of Surface Ale and Viole herself, a Starkhaven (or was it Ansburg?). Their 'reassignment' to the lost province was very unlikely to be due to particular skill or merit: more likely discarded pawn of a grander design.

'_No wonder I feel at home'_

Buried in his ponderings, Serpico absent-mindedly noted that he had diverted from his intended path and was now pacing at the edges of the camp hospital. The low, pained groans and snorts and the even snoring shook him out of his inner, secluded, _depressing_ world and unfolded the marvels of dozens of maimed, infected and dying soldier displayed before him. Mundane (isn't that how Tervinters call the 'non-gifted'?) were patrolling among the scrambled lines of cots offering soothing words and fresh bandages, while the odd mage leaned over and murmured some words in Arcanum. Often the blue, luminescent light wasn't enough. _'No healing magic can cure the Taint'_

_'Wait, isn't the Joining some example of successful magical ritual? Using darkspawn blood and lyrium and the secret ingredients I'm not deemed reliable enough to know? Need to ask Viole... mmm, maybe later'_

The evening breeze enthralled him with a fresh wave of pus and stale blood and body-fluids, with a touch of insides for the choosy. Lovely. Deeming to have grasped the inner nature of the scenery portrayed before his eyes, Serpico turned on his heels and crashed directly into a guard. _'Toth' cursed spectacles, where is my mind?'_

The guard managed to not fall on his back and snorted loudly, his breath smelling of cheap ale and some spice of doubt origin. Giving him a quick look, he welcome the Junior Warden with a groan.

"'bout time got me shift. Blight'd weasel won't let me go, trick'd me into givin' him me bloody dinner for the blasted deserter. None of me business now pal" With another snort and a loud curse, he strode away and soon was engulfed by the increasing darkness.

'_What a Paragon of Oratory. Should present him to Alistair, they would hit it off in zero time'_

Shrugging it off, Serpico decided on giving the situation a look, if not to prevent any complaint to reach the Wardens for his 'lack of carrying out a duty appointed on a whim by a drunkard'. He wouldn't live down the embarrassment.

Whistling a merry tune, Serpico paced toward the hung cage a little off, behind the big pavillon reserved to the ever lacking medical provisions. He flipped the spear in his hand once, resting it comfortably against his shoulder for further precaution. Drunkard's assessment reeked too much to be utterly reliable.

What he found was not some wicked deserted trying to free a comrade in flight, but a sassy lad tricking a starved out prisoner to deliver him the key to a chest full of valuable as a reward for a meagre meal not worthy two coppers.

'_Man should be in the government, mark my word'_

"You know" he pointed out, emerging from the shadows from where he had watched the singular exchange take place. "I wouldn't touch it with my bare fingers. Scorch it with fire to be safe". To his dismay, the man in scout gear didn't start in surprise but merely shrugged it off and folded the key into a dirt scrap of linen.

"You shouldn't sneak behind jumpy people, they may tend to be... over-reactive" placidly uttered the man, turning and showing his face in the light of the nearest hanging torch. About six-feet, five-feet-nine maybe, with a ruffled mane of raven black hair and piercing blue eyes way darker than Serpico's home, he eyed his spear with obvious amusement and shot him a full-mouth smile surrounded by a uncared stubble. He rolled a sharp throwing knife from chuckle to chuckle and pointed at some dark corner on Serpico's left.

"Didn't play fair, however. Not that I ever do. Two against one unbalances the odds, don't you think?" A rustle later and from the dried foliage emerged a grey Mabari warhound moving with the grace of a beast a quarter his size and weight. Serpico cocked an eyebrow as the mutt - remember not to call them that when predicaments such as this arise - pressed his paw against his open palm and softly barked. Was that meant as menacing?

"Ah, she likes you. Lucky wolf you are" chuckled the rave-haired scout. "Name's Hawke, Istavan Hawke. The fine lady beside me is Ashes"

'_Smart bloke'_ grinned the Warden, clasping the offered forearm in the warrior salute. "Warden Serpico, Istavan. Fine mutt you have there" _Oops_

Istavan Hawke shot him a look conflicted between bewilderment, fright and outmost amusement. Ashes, on the other hand, dropped into fighting position and growled viciously. Opting for an easy way out, Serpico swiftly extracts a nice slop of dried meat and offers it to the offended Mabari, causing Istavan to burst out laughing.

"Oh, you quickly caught up with the first two rules about Mabari" he snickered, blatantly counting with his fingers while Ashes gnawed the peace token. "First, very sensitive on the name department. Worse with the Ladies" Ashes shallowed and yelped merrily, causing a chuckle to escape both men. "Second, and most important, bribery is the way to their hearts. See?" He pointed at the female-mabari trying to forcibly worm her way to Serpico's belt satchels and his well-preserved reserve of meat.

Istavan then walked past Serpico, muttering about his dimwit of a brother and waving over his shoulder while the Warden fended off another assault from a too-friendly Mabari. After another couple of minutes of the one-sided quarrel, Ashes the Mabari joyously strode off with a large satchel full of meat firmly placed between her paws. Once the Mabari disappeared among the multitude of tents and ruins, Serpico slapped himself on the brow. Hard.

"That scoundrel" he mutters in half-stupor "He pulled a prank to the prankster and got off with the shitty key. Grandfather's dusty banged grave, I need a pint. And that sergeant. Right away"

* 0 *

_AN: Fairly long chapter here (Longer single submit so far?). Had a go with first person narration and presented a grieved and angered Fergus, less diplomatic than one could imagine, especially towards the Chantry. Cousland will give more active contribution to my adaptation than in canon, just wait and see._

_Took freedom to turn Ser Gilmore the other way round from the cheerful knight we meet in canon. He is a man climbing up the ladder to high life, aiming to achieve a safe and respected position to become independent from Ser Naois - his father- influence and prove his worth. He tends to distance himself from his comrades and broods a bottomless hate for mages for reasons hinted in his 'stream of consciousness' and explained in a not so clear future. His only soft spot was for Elissa Cousland, now savagely butchered by Howe's soldiers: an heavy blow to a Ser Gilmore lready having second thoughts about his possibilities in the Order. His characterization may sound similar to Jory's, and it somehow is, but while Ser Jory remains the naive big boy obsessed with his wife and who joined the Wardens due to the twisted, well-meaning image he portrayed himself of the ancient Order (non unlikely Cailan), Ser Gilmore Joins out of mere ambition, seeing the Order as another necessary step towards an higher - and self-centered - goal. Naive himself, but not in Jory's good-willing way that may make the player feel sympathetic with the Redcliffe knight._

_Names names names: Istavan come directly from Guin Saga, Serpico is Farneze's (SPOILER) half-brother in Berserk and Jodie... got enthralled with Beyond: two souls. From which comes Mavis hairstyle I so terribly described. Ashes I took up from one of my thrash-bin experiments with fanfictions! Viole and Alec... just because so!_

_Thanks to BlunderBore for his review and see you all next chapter!_


	5. 5) First steps, first falls

Chap 5: First steps, first falls

_The basement was unnaturally cold, damp and completely cast into thick darkness. Almost. Eerie blue light emanated from the odd crystal hanging from the ceiling, each one a small pulse of lifeless light down the endless corridor._

_Mavis stumbled on, barefoot on the freezing pavement, tripping constantly on her own feet and against some invisible obstacle cast her way. She fell repeatedly, bruising her stretched out palms like a blindman's. The wounds stung viciously, but it's the non-physical pain that made every step a living hell._

_Sharp icicles stabbed at the back of her head without cease, the usual quiet buzz a surge of constant pain she couldn't recede from willingly. A couple she could block-off. The horde hovering over her crippled the very line of her thoughts._

_The corridor opened up into a vast chamber showered with the same eerie, repulsing - and yet so attractive - light. Mavis's breath condensed into white, puffing clouds as soon as it slipped through her serrated, cyanotic lips, the cold enveloping her very bones and crushing them mercilessly. Under a larger crystal, a large cell stood in the middle of the room, unguarded and apparently empty. _

_Mavis edged closer, one baby step after the other, the numbness threatening to take over her body and force her into a deep slumber she wouldn't awake from. She would have warmed herself with a base-fire spell, but her magic was totally suppressed, her will crushed under the talon of many. _

_Something stirred on the cell's pavement. An amorphous figure heaves itself, slowly defining a form under Mavis' hooded, tired eyes. Two legs, tow arms, a rag of clothing, once peach coloured with lovely silver seams on the sides, covered its starved limbs, a mere layer of pale, sick skin over white bones. _

_Ruffled, torn blond hair descended over slouched, bit-marked shoulders and sore, twitching pointed ears; hollow emerald green eyes look at her from between the eye-sockets. Mavis took a terrified step back, her frozen jaw slacked in a silent cry of horror. _

_The Tranquil girl before her remained still and obedient, her marking burning off Mavis' own forehead._

_"The lost lamb returns to her shepherd at last" purred an oily, slimy voice in Mavis' ear, while two absurdly strong hands clutched her by the shoulders and shoved her against the steel bars of the cage._

_"You have been a bad, bad lamb" The creature in Templar armour emerges into the dim light, enormous lifeless eyes cruelly boring into her with unrestrained satisfaction, his face a reticulum of wicked-looking scars that didn't leave an inch of skin uncovered down to the burly neck._

_A cold gauntlet coup her chin and heaved her on her feet, ignoring whatever meagre, weak defence she put up. Not magic, never magic. Not _that _magic. The other massive hand produced a singing brand whose melody quelled all of her struggles and left her a motionless puppet. _

_"And what do we do to bad lambs?" softly asked the scarred Templar, bringing the infamous brand inches away from her bare forehead. Mavis tried to move away, urged her body to move, to slip away from the vicious grip, but all to no avail._

_Behind her, through the steel bars, emaciated arms hugged her chest and held her still. A neutral, even, mechanical voice she knew all too well whispered in her hear sternly._

_"Even a Tranquil has a role to thrive in"._

_The brand kissed her brow like a tender, ruthless lover and Mavis screamed herself awake._

* 0 *

'_Whoa, that's... pleasant'_

His Templar senses stood on alert as the blue light enveloped his forearm, more out of drilled reflex than anything else. Alistair watched half-amazed half-bewildered as the wounded tissue snitched itself together from the bone up at amazing speed. A sense of relief washed over him as the slight weariness he had experienced in the past hour suddenly vanished from his limbs, replaced by a wave of sudden, galvanizing energy.

He sighed and Mavis looked up to him from under her white, savage locks. Alistair felt a jab of guilt and worry in his guts: the bags under her dark, violet eyes had grown deeper and darker, way darker, during the night. She was pale, absurdly so, which was only stressed by her candid white hair. A ghost in the Wilds.

She averted her gaze immediately and sprung up on her feet, swaying a little from the sudden rush of blood to her head. Alistair made for supporting her, but Mavis retreated abruptly from his touch, sending him a hurt, terrified look and quickly shifting towards Ser Jory and his light bruises.

"Maker, what was that?" he asked himself under his breath. To his surprise, someone answered him, making him startle in surprise.

"Trouble with your girlfriend?" teased Serpico, only a few feet away and rummaging the pockets of a dead soldier. Poor slob.

"Stop that" mumbled the Templar, feeling a sudden warmness creep up his neck and the Nevarran chuckled at that.

"That sounded _so _much like Duncan's" he commented, but then tilted his head toward the general direction Mavis had moved to. "You should look after her... not everyone shares your fondness for little Mavis".

Alistair outright ignored any implication and shot a look at the knight speaking with Ser Jory at the moment instead. Ser Gilmore had bluntly refused any 'magical assistance' from the girl-mage and the Templar hadn't missed the continuous, ominous glances he gave her behind his shoulder. '_Fears she may turn into a brain-eating, poem-reciting abomination all of a sudden? The Knight-Commander would go crazy for him'._

"Gilmore doesn't like her" he stated vaguely.

"Don't be a fool Ali. Gilmore despises her, as much as she despises Viole. He's only too scared of the latter to trouble her. At least he's not a _complete_ moron."

Alistair shivered at the passing memory of the Senior Mage Warden's _little, __friendly__ chat _ with him not six months ago, as she had label it afterwards. He still had dreams of that meeting. Nightmares, far likely.

Alistair's Templar persona took the upper hand for a moment and his tongue worked faster than his brain. "We can't force him to like her. She's a mage, after all". As soon as the words sunk in, the Junior Warden wished he could dive into the marshes, into a smelly, deep pond. With carnivorous Warden-eating fishes.

The look Serpico gave him was half between contempt and stupor. Then he slowly shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder what Duncan sees in you. You can be such an hypocrite, flirt with her one moment and then knife her in the back for something she has no fault of. You should team up with Gilmore and go your merry way". That said, he stood up from his crouched position and moved past him, but Alistair straddled him placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Really" he sighed in frustration, rubbing his eyes with the still bare hand, the flesh on his recently healed forearm still pink and fresh. "Sometimes, my tongue has a mind of its own"

"I like it best when it makes a complete fool out of you" grimly chuckled the Nevarran Warden, absent-mindedly poking a wolf's corpse with his spear. "Just keep your oh-so Templarness out of earshot, little Mavis doesn't need that too" The Nevarran glances at the white-haired mage straining herself over a bite wound on Daveth's calf, then turns back to his brother.

"You heard that last night, didn't you?"

Alistair nodded, his hand falling against his side. "And who didn't? She woke up half the camp. That scream... I can still hear it"

"Then there is no need to discuss this any further brother. Stand close to her, I don't want a sixteen years old to die under _my_ care... or to be abducted" He stared meaningfully at the former-Templar recruit for a moment, then turned and strode towards the waiting recruits. Daveth theatrically pointed at the Nevarrand Warden and sighed.

"The hero returns at last to his loyal companion"

"To beat their stone-heads with the shaft of his spear" concluded Serpico for him, not the shadow of a grin on his face. The rogue immediately sobered up, while the two knights ceased their quiet chatting whose topic Alistair had no trouble guessing for once.

"I take point, we don't want the 'spawn to swoop down on you before you can collect you vial. Alistair and Mavis in the centre, you two knights take the flanks. Daveth, yours is the back. Stay close together and look out"

"But, what if the darkspawn ambush us?" questioned a slightly pale Ser Jory. Serpico shot him a levelling look but bit back the sarcastic retort that maybe, only _maybe_, the one sporting trousers at home was his oh-so _beloved _wife with _sparkling_ eyes, who undoubtedly was rejoicing she didn't have such a fuss at home.

"Me and Alistair are here to prevent that, Jory" he stated "Plus, it's not like any of you has been chosen for its good looks" There it is, sarcasm lovely sarcasm. Daveth chuckled but despite rolling his eyes, Serpico didn't miss the hateful look Gilmore shot at little Mavis and at Alistair who had taken place beside the much lither figure. At least he wouldn't have to worry with backstabbing, not until they left the Wilds with their hides still on their own backs.

* 0 *

Serpico let the spear slide through his hand until he gripped it mid-shaft, the spun and impaled the charging hurlock, the dragonbone blade piercing through metal, muscle tissue and bone like it was butter. Deftly drawing it out of the collapsing darkspawn, he turned and the spear sliced the throats of two approaching genlocks still five feet away with incredible ease as the shaft slid into his grip and extended his attack-reach. The spawn crumbled to the slimy ground with barely a sound and Serpico took a moment off to examine the course of battle.

Gilmore wasn't bad, fair is fair. He had crushed an hurlock's face with his shield and was proceeding into cutting its head off that very moment, while another genlock laid in a pool of his own blood only a few feet away. Jory was covered in mud and slime from head to toe: he had fallen into a nearby pond at the very beginning, tackled by a genlock that had exploited his initial shock and Daveth had timely saved him from an axe in the skull. After all, not that bad, he somehow had earned his own vial.

Daveth had peppered arrows from safe distance with respectful results, all the while chuckling and telling jokes to no one in particular. Eyes still sickly wide and with a glint Serpico didn't like, but nothing he hadn't seen before in any soldier at his first fight.

Mavis... well, _that _ was an unexpected surprise. The bulk of the war-band he himself had spotted had charged towards little Mavis and the watchful Alistair, all the while keeping the other recruits from assisting their companions. Not that Gilmore would have lifted a finger, probably, but anyway. Alistair had smashed the alpha leading them down hard, slicing him in the gut while keeping the darkspawn lunging for an unmoving Mavis at bay with ferocious strikes.

'_She looked so utterly helpless one moment and then... BOOM'_ Little Mavis shouted something at Alistair, about grabbing one of those creatures. After a moment of hesitation and another for parrying a renewed assault, Alistair smashed his shield right in a too bold hurlock's face and grabbed him. Mavis _tapped_ the spawn on the head and murmured a couple words, then Alistair kicked the bewitched creature amidst its kin.

A moment later, the hurlock blew up to the moon into a cascade of gore and bones and blood, knocking almost all of the party down and killing roughly half of them outright. From then, it had been a piece of cake.

Muddy-Jory vocalized Serpico's own question with a trembling and too pitched voice. "Andraste's mercy, what was _that_?" Daveth looked up, and handful of retrieved arrows in his grasp, while Gilmore simply scoffed and jumped in.

"Magic, Ser Jory. What else could cause such reckless, absurd damage. She's a _mage, _after all. We got lucky she didn't blow us u-"

"Shut your trap Gilmore" hissed Alistair, taking a step forward and shielding Mavis. Had she done that purposefully or without thinking? Despite their current predicament, Serpico couldn't hold on a small smile from creeping to his lips.

"It was a bit messy" continued Alistair, pointing at the heaps of gore and blood staining a good radius before them, and Alistair's armour as well "but that was quite a large group. Or you thought you could take them on your own?"

"Maker's shiny grave Gilmore, you managed to piss off the most good-hearted lad in the order, and you show a great degree of _deafness_ as well" He shot a no-nonsense look at the haughty knight, then turned towards little Mavis still partially shielded behind Alistair. '_She looks so meek, and all of a sudden darkspawn blow up like Satinalia's fishcakes. Father, I'm getting old. I'm even repeating myself'_

"What spell was that, little Mavis?" he asked, smiling reassuringly "Pretty useful ace up your sleeve, don't you think" And then he witnessed the same, passing change of attitude she had undergone when she had guessed the make of his spear just by looking at it. Away the trembling voice and the eyes-averting, enter the professional scholar.

"It-It's called '_Walking Bomb_', it's a common spell of the Spirit School. The mage - I - 'pours' her energy into the touched target and can... detonate him from a distance. The more power, the stronger is the explosion"

Alistair looked slightly baffled, Daveth was gaping and Jory exchanged a quick look with a scowling Gilmore. Serpico cocked his eyebrows and looked at the carnage the 'common spell' had caused. Then he whistled in admiration.

"Well, that's something to behold. You don't even look the least bit tired after such a grand explosion, you must work wonders" _Not any __more__ tired, at least. _Little Mavis slightly blushed at the praise, her pale cheeks turning a comely shade of pink and quickly averted her gaze. To his amusement, Alistair shot him a quick, annoyed glance, his lips almost pouting. "_These two are adorable_"

"W-well, you see" she explained, stumbling a little on the words " Spirit School is my... main focus, you may say. I'm more... attuned to such spells"

"Which means she can blow us up with barely breaking a sweat?" chided an annoyed Gilmore "Great, now I'm far more reassured" The knight stormed off, then stopped and looked over his shoulder with an exasperated look on his face. "Well, what are you waiting for? We can't waste all day praising the little _witch_"

* 0 *

"That guy is _creepy. _'_Come on, the guards don't care if you want to stroll in the Wilds if you don't ask for help. Not the first time I went for a walk'_ he said. In a darkspawn infested forest, creepy enough on its own. And he's not a Warden. '_Ashes needed some fresh air_'"

"You tell me? His mutt" Serpico looked over his shoulder to be sure he was out of hearshot. Good " His _mutt_ stole half my provision of meat last night." He wouldn't speak about the key-business. Not after being outwitted by that Hawke scout.

"He _stole_ your meat? Mabaris surely love you" chuckled Alistair, hiding a smirk with his hand.

"I would put you cheese under lock. And buried, to be safe" retorted Serpico, making Alistair pale. "Besides, I mean to-"

"Wait" interrupted Alistair, coming to an halt raising one hand and turning to the side. Mavis had suddenly stiffened and closed her eyes. She looked... intent, small wrinkles creasing her brow as she focused on something they could only take wild guesses of. Behind them, the three recruits stopped their chatting - bickering, regarding Jory and Daveth - and gave confused looks at the Wardens on point. Gilmore only scoffed and mumbled something under his breath, than for safety's sake unsheathed his sword.

A whole minute crept on before Mavis returned to them, a small drop of sweat trailing down her temple.

"T-there is something _w-wrong_, up ahead" she murmured, pointing her staff at a gentle slope on the right of their path.

"Darkspawn?" croaked Jory, eyeing his surrounding warily. Serpico suppressed a sigh and shook his head.

"Nope, none this close. There is a decent group far ahead, I'd say at the base of the tower, but none up the hill"

"Thank the Maker" murmured the knight, sighing in relief and slapping a mosquito away from his brow. Damn insects, they will leave nothing of us to return to the camp "I'm still not ready to face _another_ of those magical darkspawn.."

"Roughly one every dozen of them is a _magical_ darkspawn, Jory" gently informed Alistair without turning to face the knight. Nope, no darkspawn up the hill. Maybe a pack of shrieks? Unlikely, between the two of them they should sense them. A giant wheel of Amaranthine blue cheese maybe? '_Stop thinking with your stomach, bad Alistair'_

'_Maybe she likes it too_. _That would be...'_

_'A territory I do __not__ want to explore' _ he concluded, repressing his wild thought before he went too far. He stole a glance (_stole?_) at Mavis beside him, at the way she had combed her hair into a short ponytail, leaving the curve of her neck...

_'Stop. ._'

"What did you, ehm, feel?" he asked the mage, in order to distract himself from his wandering thoughts. Mavis looked at him, the dark eye bags still a dreadful sight despite the repeated restoring spells she cast on herself, and then quickly turned her gaze ahead when she noticed that he was looking at her as well.

"The Veil is sundered... right on top" At everyone's quizzical look, even Alistair's, Mavis breathed deeply and explained "The Veil is the... barrier that divides our world from the Fade, where demons and spirits reside. Where the Veil is torn... demons can physically cross, without needing a ... mage to possess" She suddenly became even paler and seemed to shrink under their questioning glances '_Too-too many, too close, too close, tooclosetooclose'_

"T-there is... _s-something _ up there" she stumbled on her words, not looking at any of them but keeping her eyes fixed on her boots. Her hands fidgeted with her staff, clutching it strongly enough to make her knuckles go dead white. "A p-presence, probably a d-demon. And t-there was someone else, c-close by, b-but it's... it's..." '_Tooclose, goaway, awayawayaway, the Demon, will sense me. More will come. Like the nightmare, again and again andagainandagainandagain. They'll take me they will like Alyse...'_

"What's wrong with her _now_?"

"Gilmore, just shut up"

"She's utterly terrified, can't you see? Just like yesterday. Maker's she's trembling like a leaf!"

"She said something about a Demon. We can't risk to bring her up there, she may be possessed and..."

"And what do you suggest? Execute her to '_free her from her sin'_? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _me?_ _I _am not the thrall of demons! Didn't you see what she's capable off?"

"I saw that she probably saved your useless hide, you ungrateful zealot! Now stand down and sheathe your sword! _Now!_"

"Who do you think you are, _Warden_? Didn't you _scout ahead_ just yesterday with that other _witch?_ Did you just _miss_ the blighted demon-up-the-hill?"

"We took another route Recruit, the one _tight-clad_ with those fuckers! This one we left to poor, incompetent sods like _you_, worthy only as fodder for dead griffons! Sheathe your damn sword!"

'_I don't want to, please Alyse, not again, not this time. Father, please, don't let them, they will brand me, like the dream, just like the dream...'_

Two strong, gentle arms lifted her up from the ball she had curled into, careful not to hurt her or cause distress. Mavis stiffened reflexively and dared not open her eyes, fearing that her nightmares had become true and Ser Alrik was lounging over her with his cruel grin and lifeless eyes and scarred face, holding the brand and purring in his oily voice into her hear.

She felt herself being pressed against something hard and cold and slimy and _stinky_ while bare hands patted on her shoulders and squeezed them reassuringly. Warm breath caressed her skin and ears as soothing words found their way to her frightened mind and all of a sudden the dam crushed down and tears started flooding down her cheeks, a river too long repressed.

"I didn't want to, '_sniff'_ please, I'm sorry. It's my fault, '_sniff' _all my fault, he had nothing to do with it. It was '_sniff' _the Templar, believe me, the Templar, he just '_sniff'_ protected me. Please, I didn't mean to, forgive me, I didn't mean to... " she sobbed, inconsolable, a stream of words and names the others had nothing but wild guesses on. Still Alistair held her close, murmured the words she needed to hear, rocked her gently in his arms and slowly, very slowly, the river of tears dried. An awkward silence had fallen upon them, suffocating the heated argument between an extremely outraged Gilmore and a quite pissed off Serpico, but still daggers and withering glares flew between them.

'_Such a petite thing, she is_' reflected Alistair as the sobs against his chest began to subside. His legs were starting to feel numb under the light weight and the prolonged stillness, but he dared not to move Mavis away. '_The Grand Cleric would probably have a stroke if she saw me right now. A Templar - well, ex-recruit - comforting a mage with an unknown, dark past full of secrets and slaughtered bunnies and stolen cheese... Maker, I'm really hopeless'_

He felt her stirring weakly against his chest, softly murmuring some words under her breath, and then her hands pushed against his chestplate. When she lifted her chin, Alistair had a fit. Not for the extensive tear marks on her cheeks. Not for the blood and gore that smeared her face - thanks to his armour, one might say, or to her own spell in the first place.

Alistair had never seen her eyes so close and so... _vividly_. The unique shade, a rich dark violet, he had noticed, just like anyone who met her, gloomy and somewhat haunted. Now... Andraste's stitched canopy, they were _shimmering!_. The former-Templar recruit didn't realize how long he had been staring - like a true gentleman - before Serpico coughed, nudged him with the bottom of his spear and shook him back to planet Thedas.

She was looking down, face flushed ripe-tomato red, on hand rubbing the last tears off her eyes while staring at the smear on her hand and vest and dripping from her face. Then Alistair realized how _ close _ they actually were. Only moments ago he could feel her breath on his face! Shouldn't he be struck by a lightning anytime soon?

"I-I'm sorry, I did- did not..." Mavis mumbled, still not looking at him in the face, awkwardly stepping back and fumbling her satchel for something passable to clean her face with. Alistair repressed the flush-wave trying to submit his face to its will, absolutely _ignored _the expression on Serpico's face and the low whistle that was Daveth's whole contribute to the conversation and quickly produced one of his linen bandages from his backpack.

What he could not ignore was the _other _wave of heat that assaulted him, clutching his stomach and turning his abdomen into a raging fire pit. '_Have the Wilds always been this hot?'_

* 0 *

"What in the name of Andraste is that?"

"Jory, cut it! Spread out, don't let it grab you! Alistair-"

"The Templars! The Templars are rising!"

"No, it cannot be... it's impossible, I-I held your ashes..."

"Gilmore, hold it together! Stand up Recruit!"

"Living dead! Blood Magic!"

"Urgh! Jory, help Gilmore up! Daveth, with me! Alistair and little Mavis, the Demon is yours!"

"_I'm Gazaranth, you puny mortal! Where is Astia? What has your kin done to my beloved Astia?"_

"Great, a Demon carrying a torch! Wonder what's left for today"

Serpico dived under a clumsy slice aiming for his head and brought his spear up, mid-grip, thrusting through the risen Templar corpse's chin all the way up, until the blade emerged from the top-side of its skull. The undead didn't budge though, and a ominous strong hand tried to grab him by the throat. Serpico backpedaled and twisted the shaft sideward, freeing it and relieving the eerily-preserved head from its top half. Grimacing inwardly, Serpico sidestepped a blind trust and spun, building momentum and beheading the walking dead in a single, smooth sweep.

"Slice off the head! Severe the spine at the neck!"

A corpse was set ablaze, the preserved but dried skin turning out to be highly inflammable. Serpico dodged another corpse only to see Daveth throwing a liquid-filled cruet against another. The cruet exploded on contact with the unholy cuirass and in the blink of an eye the undead was shrouded in flames.

"Ser Gilmore!" Jory's cry made both of them turn towards an appalling scene. Jory himself was facing two of the risen Templars, but Gilmore was succumbing to his enemy. Worse, he wasn't fighting back, just staring in utter disbelief at the walking corpse before him, his mouth moving without emitting a single sound, not even when the corpse's sword emerged from the knight's back. He fell down on his knees heavily, tearing the blade of his assailant's hands just before Serpico fell upon it and swiftly beheaded the corpse, sending the slime-smeared mane of red hair bouncing down the slope.

Gilmore weakly grasped the sword's hilt, but made no attempt to remove it as the pool of dripping blood spread around him: no, he just fondly brushed his fingers over a series of carvings covering the whole wooden hilt, eyes tearing up as he spat a mouthful of blood, then he fell to the side and stayed unmoving.

Together, Jory and Serpico dispatched the last of the undead as a high, painful wail announced the Gazaranth's demise. Before Alistair and his gore-caked sword the slightly humanoid form seemed to fold on itself as thick, black blood spilled from dozens of wounds. Before he was reduced to anything but a pulp of demonic gore, Serpico thought he had heard the creature _thank_ its slayers, but the sight of Gilmore laying motionless on the ground wiped such foolish thoughts away from his mind.

Gilmore was staring off in the distance, his green eyes wide open and his features twisted in pain and disbelief. Mavis was kneeling beside him in no time at all, deftly checking for any spark of life both with magical means and not. After a minute-long survey, she sighed and gently closed the young knight's eyes.

"I-I'm sorry, there is... nothing I can do" she murmured, and for a moment Serpico saw the faint glistening of tears at the corner of her eyes, but little Mavis wanted to be a big girl apparently and fought them down. Serpico simply stared at the rapidly cooling corpse, half expecting the moronic knight to spring up on his feet with some angry retort or wild accusation for the _mage_ who dared touch him. He was only half aware of Jory slamming his armored fist against a nerby, musk-covered trunk.

"Why? Why didn't he fight back? He could have killed that monster easily, I know he could!"

"He didn't" plainly stated Serpico, without averting his gaze from the dead recruit. Fallen against an unnatural fiend. Fallen under _his_ command. Damn.

"It makes no sense, it was only a corpse - gross, fair enough - but hardly a worst match than those filthy creatures we have been facing thus far!"

"Tone down your voice Recruit. We have alerted half the Wilds with our stunt here" commanded the Nevarran, ignoring Alistair's worried looks cast in his direction. His brother would not have understood. It was not his _responsibility _ to assure that _all_ the recruits came back.

"Don't bullshit with me Warden, or else..."

"It was his brother"

Everyone turned to face Daveth: the pickpocket reached the clearing on top, hopping over a dead-dead corpse, holding something round under his armpit. Round and bloody and dry. Covered in lurid red hair.

"The walking dead red-knight faced. It was his brother - well, what remained of him, all in all"

Jory's jaw clenched, closing the "O" gape that had formed despite his restrain, and shook his head in disbelief. Just like Gilmore had moments before passing away in a pool of his own blood.

"It's impossible Daveth. Ser Gilmore once told me his brother had passed away during duty. Two years ago. He treasured his remains on the desk over the fireplace. At home. In Highever."

"Look, Ser-Wife, I don't know about you, but ten minutes ago I thought for the dead to rise and do the bidding of some demon-fella to be _impossible_"

Serpico glanced sideway, seeing Alistair rummage in the pockets of the dead-dead sporting the most complicated armor. Complexity equals rank in the Templars after all. After a bit of throughout looting, he produced a damp, worn scroll from one of the belt pouches and carefully examined it. As he read, his eyes went wider and wider with shock.

"What's wrong Ali?" _Other than one of my recruits having gone to join the Maker's side. Fucking zealot._

"You won't believe it. Really" grimly stated Alistair, folding the scroll and placing it into his own backpack.

"Test me" cockily taunted the Nevarran, tilting his head. Daveth and Jory had stopped their bickering over the quickly rotting head, already covered by a swarm of buzzing insects, and now looked with mild interest and quite annoyed at the hazel-eyed Junior Warden.

Alistair looked for support in Mavis, but the young mage felt curious herself. What were a full patrol of Templars doing in the Wilds ? Following an apostate? While had they stirred a sad, vengeful spirit like Gazaranth awake?

Cornered, Alistair sighed. " Unbelievable as it is, they were sent here with direct orders from the Grand Cleric, the old lady up in Denerim." He paused, looking meaningfully at every and each one of them. "To look and seize no one else than Flemeth herself. Looks like the spirit got them first."

Mavis was the first to connect the name to the actual legend and breathed in too much air, ending up coughing herself out, with Alistair gently patting her on the back. Jory simply looked puzzled, and while the name only found vague recollection in Serpico, Daveth's eyes shot wide open and his mouth went gaping all the way down.

"_That_ Flemeth? The Witch of the Wilds?" Daveth's voice, always over-sarcastic and honeyed, rose to a shrill shriek, all the blood draining from his face leaving him mortally pale. "Who would be this stupid? The Witch abducts babies and grown man and feasts on their still warm bodies and-" Serpico's raised hand prevented the rant to go any further. He was actually dead serious.

"They sent this many man to look for a bed-time _ legend?_" he hissed, shocked at the Fereldan Gran Cleric's naivety.

"Well, actually" meekly chided Mavis, unconsciously fidgeting with her hands. "There actually _is_ a Flemeth in the history records. Wife of the last Elstan to hold Highever in the Tower Age, she supposedly killed him and run away to the Wilds, allowing the first Cousland to take the reins and move against the Howes. Captain of the guard she was. Here the records split. Most narrate al lengths how Flemeth made a pact with a powerful demon and allowed her daughters, the Witches of the Wilds Daveth speaks of, to lead the Chasind tribesmen against the Alamarri in the Nord, and how the Hero Cormac pushed the Wilders back and slayed every last Witch"

"Cormac was a hero outright, every child knows about it" solemnly announced Jory. His comment made Mavis pause if only for a moment, but she continued nonetheless.

"_However_, some foreign tomes account Flemeth an almighty sorceress, an apostate if the term is more familiar, but deny both the Chasind invasion and Flemeth's role in it. You must understand that in those very years the Third Blight roamed in north Thedas, so foreign reports tend to be imprecise and relatively biased by nationalistic beliefs. However, I have read both of Tervinters' and Orlesians' sharing the objective opinion that Cormac exploited the Flemeth to conduct a bloody civil war to bring Ferelden under his flag. Quite pointless for that purpose. Soooo, if this Flemeth the... Chantry... is after is the same history tells off, she would be around uhm, six hundred and thirty years old."

By the time she ended her historical explanation, everyone was attending in religious silence. Serpico's brows were cocked in amusement, wild locks of curly black hair falling on his smirking face from under the helmet. He nudged at a gaping Alistair, who right then felt like the most ignorant ex-Templar-turned-Warden- and with a sick fondness of cheese - in whole Thedas.

"Wow, I mean... ehm... you are one for books aren't you?" _Oh, witty Alistair strikes again with his irresistible charm... wait, what?_. Serpico slapped himself on the forehead, hard, then motioned for the others to follow him.

"Not-so dead Templars and legendary apostates apart, we still have a task to accomplish" He absent mindedly caught a blood-filled mosquito mid air and squished it. "Filthy creatures. Right, off the tower we go"

"Wait Warden, what about Ser Gilmore?" asked a confused if not slightly offended Jory. " A knight deserves every proper funeral rite and..."

"And right now his corpse would only be a burden. There are still darkspawn between us and those treaties, and we better hurry. I don't want to still be here when the battle rages" He looked up, the sun had just reached his zenit and would soon begin his slow descent towards the horizon. Five more hours of light at best.

"But... the body... we can't"

Serpico sighed and rolled his eyes in exasperation. " If we were in Nevarra I'd just dig a hole and bury him, but I understand you prefer giving you dead to the fire. Andraste must be _so _ pleased looking at you, constantly reminding her of Minranthous." At Jory's growing annoyance, he lifted a palm in peace. "You have my word, Jory, we will pick him up on the way back, unless we are chased down by the darkspawn. And he will be treated like the Warden he would have been" _Viole will probably have a fit laughing herself off. He wouldn't have survived her with that temper of his. Maybe a couple days before we had fried-Gilmore at the evening meal. Still... Damn!_

Good old Alistair sensed his internal conflict and backed him up. Good lad, good friend. A pity for his oh-so follower tendency.

"Come, everyone" he commanded to all but looking only at a certain white-haired mage who turned to heal a scratch on Jory's temple, but whose ears turned a lovely shade of pink. 'Off to the tower!"

"Ehm, a-about that" stammered Mavis while soothing blue light made short work of the scratch. "T-the tower is not e-empty"

"What do you mean?" questioned a now fretting Jory, whose nervousness had infected Daveth as well at the mention of the Witches and Flemeth. "Another demon? More undead? Darkspawn?"

Mavis shrunk away from the bulleting questions, almost raising her hands in self defense, but then relaxed and firmly shook her head. "N-no, nothing like that - I mean, I-I don't know about darspawn, but no d-demons, not yet at least"

"Another mage. A weird one"

* 0 *

_AN: Chapters are getting longer and easier to write as I go on. Happy me!. So, here is the trip in the Wilds. Didn't change much from canon - didn't mention Jigby and Bigby and the cruel bastard that named them, but anyway - apart from Istavan told cameo and the unfolding of Gilmore's subplot (It won't end with his death, that's only the beginning - AU territory coming). I decided on killing him from the very beginning, cause I didn't deem necessary to have _another _ mage-suspicious party member: Sten - come on, Qunari cut Saarebas' tongues, Sten is from the same flock, at the beginning at least; Wynne - Chantry Loyalist and all, I'm having heaps of fun imagining a confront between an hardened Mavis and the old hag with all cards displayed. And Shale. Mage squisher._

_On Alistair-Mavis quick romance development: I like to think that it is possible for characters - despite my dark view of Dragon age's universe - to be starstruck. Mavis is alone for the first time, brutally divided from her friends (bits of foreshadowing here and there in this chapter about at least two of them), terrified of people and still deeply suffering from post-shock syndrome and eaten by guilt (you will have to wait for the whole origin to be explained, it's a tad different from canon). Plus, her tormentor was a Templar, but the closest figure she had to a Father as well (wonder who he is u.u), so she's not completely biased against Templars just because so (hello Anders! No, there is explanation for that too). She recognizes and appreciates gentleness like any other girl, and she's only sixteen._

_Alistair is well, Alistair! Gentle, caring, utterly naive, easily embarrassed, maybe a little less witty and jesting in this chapter than in canon and for that I apologize. He has always been kicked around his whole life, but Duncan's timely rescue from lyrium addiction and turning to him a a fatherly figure has had its influence in Alistair. He want to emulate his mentor, and becomes protective towards the new recruit, despite her being a mage, the one he feels need his help most. Not that he doesn't care, I hope I have managed to convey at least that. Only... he's Alistair after all._

_About Serpico... Gilmore's death under his watch won't be easily forgotten, that much I can say for sure._

_Thanks again to BlunderBore for his review._

_Next Chapter... we'll see :D feedback really appreciated "Mabari puppy eyes"_


	6. 6) Blame and Fault

Chapter 6 Blame and Fault

Why was she looking at her?

She wouldn't glance over her shoulder, steal a look, sneak a peek. No she wouldn't. Chin up, she vaulted over a smelly stream of water. The stink! Blighted Darkswapwn and their Blight, why in _her _Wilds of _all_ the places in Thedas? Why not some foreign, ill-speaking, fancy-looking - Morrigan suppressed a sigh - country far, far away.

Pointless question.

But why was she looking at _her_?

She suppressed the sparks of lightning trailing around her fingertips clenching her fists at her curvaceous hip, feeling the slightly - only _slightly_ - longer fingernails dig into the first layers of skin. No use in frying the bothersome twerp. Not yet.

It was unnerving. _She _ was unnerving, mentally nudging and poking and probing the witch from the very first moment Morrigan had deemed necessary to reveal her presence to those dim-witted muscle-brains. Stomping through _her _Wilds, meaninglessly skewering spawn after spawn after spawn and wandering aimlessly in wide circles around their supposed destination like blind puppies still sticky and smelly and _blind _for no mother had bothered to lick their paws and furry eyelids dry.

The sort of thing _Mother _would do just to have a good laugh and stroke a whim born between one mischievous, horrid plan about "_eventually settle down with grandkids " _based on her -Morrigan - being exploited like some puppy-bearing _cow _ and the other.

'_Add more squirrel kidney to the stew, dear Morrigan... rub my sore thumbs, dear Morrigan... take the laundry down to the pool and wash my garments clean, dear Morrigan... play little-screaming-girl with-pigtail with the big, burly Templars... follow the smug human and his flea-ridden mutt... lie with these bearded, rude, _stinky, _ignorant barbarians,_ _dear Morrigan... suck them dry and dismember them down to the pool, dear Morrigan... add some barbarian liver to the stew, there is no more squirrel dear Morrigan ...'_

_'The crackbrained, cheese-reeking Chantry fool-slave or gloomy I-must-be-compensating? So _thoughtful _of you to remind me why I utterly, totally, doubtlessly _hate _you, Mother dear'_

"Stop doing that!" Morrigan bit out, spinning on her heels and rooting herself straight on her followers' path. She pressed her tight-clenched fists against her hips and glared at the _other _meek, subservient Chantry slave with her hawk-golden eyes. To her outmost satisfaction, the wingless parrot flinched visibly and stopped on her tracks, frantically looking around and then pointing a sick-pale index at herself with some hesitation.

"Yes, _you_! Stop staring at me!"

"But..." the parrot stammered on her words and Morrigan glares her into fear-driven silence. Almost. "But... it was so... _cool_!"

Morrigan cocked a perfectly arched brow on her alabaster forehead at the comment. The crackbrained, however, voiced their common disbelief with too much a hint of... Templarness in his voice. Such a waste of a pretty face.

"You truly, _really_ believe that turning into some crow or wolf or whatever is... cool?" His dark hazel eyes tried to catch the parrot's, but under all those eerily white hair the violet-shaded orbs widened and widened and widened seemingly without limit.

"Cool, really cool!" the parrot confirmed with a streak of excitement in her childish voice, loudly clapping her palms under her nose and almost _bouncing_. Where did the stammering go? "We aren't taught anything like _that_ in the Circle. Shapeshifting is tabù to us apprentices, just like going out fishing or staying awake late or..." Ah, there it is!" ...having... friends, and the First Enchanter keeps the few tomes mentioning the subject strictly locked away. Not that they actually expose anything useful and objective, just how bad and boo-hoo shapeshifting is. Not that I have read them... well, I _have _ but..."

Morrigan scoffed at the parrot's blabbing, her cruel voice dripping sourness and disparagement. "You chantry little slaves and your foolish, constricting rules. No wonder you have lost, misplaced or simply obliterated so much of the _ancient _ lore in favor of fruitless theories and meaningless, redundant baby-spells in that prison of yours. No wonder so many of your lot fall prey to demons and surrender their souls for a hint of _what _ power is!"

All the eight eyes belonging to her makeshift audience of mindless twits darted back to the parrot. Those oh-so cheerful eyes where now poking, nudging and probing the very quagmire submerging her boots, any further lecture about how wonderful a life of _conviction _under every whim of addicted crap-heads choked in her throat. Morrigan smirked smugly at her own keenness. Little parrot girls shouldn't play with the grow-ups. Would the little parrot cry? Would her big, softie eyes shimmer with indignant, offended tears until someone stroked her mane and fed her?

"Teach me then" _What_?

For a moment the eerie silence of an entire forest lacking the barest hint of wildlife resounded in her ears while the three words echoed and banged against the inner surfaces of her skull. The crackbrained fool's mouth was agape, an inviting nest for mosquitoes and flies in any other occasion; the flirting rascal and bald-knight looked at each other in a crescendo of confusion, disbelief and horror. I-must-be-compensating snickered and then burst of laughing outright in his sharp-edged foreign-northern voice, wiping the befallen gloominess away and earning an handful of shocked stares and an edgy golden glare.

"Got you there, Ms. Morrigan" _ ? That sounds... not so bad. _Morrigan however recovered from her hinting surprise with lightning-speed and brought her enviable brain-material back to the absurd, outrageous request at hand.

"Teach _you_? A captivity-raised baby without the scarcest attitude? You must believe I'm an inveterate idiot like the lot of you!" Girl-parrot seemed to shrink into her ill-fitting clothes, bowing her head as if she was preparing to endure a sound beating, but Morrigan's pleasant contemplation of the slave's withdrawal were interrupted by an annoying pressure at the side of her head. Averting her gaze she found herself staring into a pair of ice-grey blue eyes.

Curly I-must-be-compensating was just a foot away from her, a clear invasion of her treasured personal space - which did not apply to bearded, _stinking _ savage under Mother's command, but whatever - casually leaning on the tool of his compensating and brushing some dead leaves off his shoulder plate, but nonetheless staring - no, _glaring _- at her. How dare he?

"_Inveterate_? So you have taught someone before" No question, no theory. Blunt statement without any room for denial. Morrigan felt the too-familiar binds that come with being helplessly cornered starting to constrict around her throat. "Why not little Mavis here? She's quite adept, I may say". Crackbrained beamed with horror. The parrot went puppy-eyes once again. Morrigan charged her fingers with roaring lightining.

The merciful weather came to their rescue. A drop, another, and in the blink of an eye they were being showered down by a wall of water so thick that the ever-changing profile of her Wilds all but disappeared behind a blanket of foul rain. Scents were being quelled and eradicated, the muddy, under terrain level track-road they had turned into a bantering area swelled within moments into a shin-high raging river threatening to knock them off their feet. The parrot actually stumbled on her knees under the sudden force colliding with them, but the crackbrained was deft and gallant and revolting in catching her by the shoulder and steadying the parrot on her wobbling feet with a sheepish smile stamped on those wormy lips. Again, revolting.

Morrigan suppressed a sigh of relief, letting the magical energies gathered in her palms dissolve into the rain. Stupid Nevarran and his stupid wits. Stupid trickster girls. Stupid Morrigan.

"Enough of this annoying chatter" She croaked, turning back to lead them -oh joy. "Follow up close. If you get lost, the bereskarns will take you"

* 0 *

The heavy rain tapped rhythmically against the frame tent, no longer close to the waterfall that had surprised the returning party in the Korcari Wilds, but still enough to have war-strategists try to wrap their heads around the new odd. Shielded by thick, grey tissue from the outside downpour but not from the crawling humidity in the air, two figures sat upon cross-legged camp chairs.

"So you clashed with a spirit named Gazaranth?"

Mavis shifted in her seat wringing her hands, her feet almost dangling. The camp-chair was meant for someone... _bigger_. Curse her dwarfishness. Mavis eventually nodded.

Viole straightened up on her seat, toying with a peach in her hand and then taking a wolfish bite, her gaze never leaving the white-haired girl's face. The only other mage under her direct command. Duncan's taunt in giving her an hollow title now was biting his Rivaini ass back.

"Was it a demon or a corrupted, earth-residing spirit? Did it kill Gilmore?" Viole's tone did not betray her curiosity nor her eagerness to just stand up and pull out the answers from the girl's choked throat. Hadn't she checked herself, she would never believe that _this _meek, hesitant girl had destroyed Ishtar. Maker, the Desire demon had been in _her_ Harrowing, together with the Sloth bear and the Rage/Hunger minion, but her challenge had been to outwit it, not turn it/her/whatever into a demonic bloody pulp. And what with the white air and shaded eyes? Learning blood magic was one thing, endure such drastic changes an entirely different planet. Mavis was hiding something. Period.

"I-I believe the former, Senior Warden" wavered Mavis "The Veil was t-torn in the surroundings, but the spirit - G-Gazaranth - seemed bound to a shrine, a t-tomb" Mavis paused, catching her breath and raising her eyes to meet Viole's. Whatever she saw it encouraged her to press forward.

"However, it s-summoned lesser entities, similar to t-the ignes fatui in the Fade, to m-maneuver the bodies of T-Templars" Viole arched her eyebrows. Templars? In the Wilds? Could it be... "G-Gilmore was k-k-killed by o-one of t-them. I-I-I could n-not do anything, m-me and... A-Alistair w-were f-facing G-G-Gazaranth a-and..."

Viole sighed and rose from her seat to kneel before the now trembling girl, placing both her hands to steady the skinny, bony shoulders. The literal nightmarish reaction to their lengthy sit-in last night had proved how psychologically vulnerable Mavis was at the moment, a glass castle needing anything but another nudge. Having her break down could seriously affect whether she lived or died in a few hours. Viole did not want to be the only mage in the order. Again.

"Hush child. Take a long breath and tell me." Mavis raised her chin and Viole was slightly pleased to see that no tears were trailing down her cheeks. Shimmering eyes, affirmative, but no baby-weeping for every misstep.

"O-one of the Templars - d-dead Templars - was G-Gilmore's brother. Dead brother. His corpse was t-the one to strike h-him through. T-The blade entered f-from the right side and moved up-and-leftwards, right t-through the liver and r-ripped the abdominal aorta open. H-he was d-dead before I c-could reach him. " Mavis lowered her head and half-sobbed. She seemed intent on _not _crying, noticed Viole. Good girl growing up.

"I'm sorry, i-it's my f-fault-"

"Don't say that." growled Viole, cupping the girl's chin with one hand and forcing Mavis to meet her glare. The white-haired girl winced significantly on her seat, but Viole's grip didn't falter.

"It was not your fault child"

"B-but I c-could have..."

"You were fighting against the worst menace on the field. Your unit-leader decided on deploying you directly against the spirit together with Alistair. Nobody could foretell such an odd encounter with Gilmore's dead brother's platoon, but if there is one to blame that is Gilmore himself" Mother-stern is good. Wynne was a Templar-harlot, but she knew how to impose herself. Viole would not allow _her _recruit to break herself apart over some zealot knight too dim-witted to distinguish a walking undead from some brother of his.

"I-it was his brother, S-Senior-"

"Stop Senior-Warden shit me Mavis. It's Viole, I already told you" She sighed and softened her tone "Gilmore was good man, even if a bit too much on the cage-mage side" Lie. Fucking zealot "It's good that you feel bad for his death, but you must not blame yourself, for you had no part in it. You dispatched a mighty enemy and saved the rest of your comrades from a life-threatening menace. You cannot save someone who has lost the will to live".

Viole stroked the girl's hair down to the short ponytail on her back - almost a pigtail technically speaking, but who cares. The girl had a well-meaning, gentle, caring soul. Damn, look at how guilty she was for someone who hadn't asked for anything but lock her up and run her through with a sword for good measure. Maybe too much. She was a blood mage who had slain her very demonic teacher and could dispatch a centuries-old spirit with a single '_crushing prison'_, fair enough, but was she ruthless enough to be a Warden? To leave innocents to die for the greater good?

Would she crack under the responsibility? Viole could not tell. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe tonight the Archdemon would challenge them at Wicked-Grace. Damn Alistair.

"How about your other issues?" casually asked Viole, still holding Mavis by the shoulders and stroking her mane. The girl stiffened considerably at the question, but a lowering chin was stopped mid-track by a seizing, bigger hand. Mommy-Viole mode activated. "Did the big, bad men harrass you?"

Mavis hastily shook her head, her eyeballs frantically dancing to avoid eye-contact. "No no, they were nice and... Gilmore frightened me but Serpico scolded him and Daveth joked and Ser Jory talked about his wife and incoming kid and life at Redcliffe - was it Highever? - and Serpico stopped the shapeshifting witch - Morrigan, that's her name - from moping the ground with me and her mother was creepy and scary and said she was _that_ Flemeth and Daveth panicked and Jory scoffed and..."

Viole let the Recruit carry on with her soliloquy for a while, retracing amidst that flurry of words the facts from Serpico's report: the darkspawn, the wolves, Gilmore's close-mindedness, that Hawke scoundrel, Morrigan and her Mother who boasted being Flemeth -_ Flemeth_!- and the uneventful trip back except for Mavis willingness to learn more forbidden magic arts. Good girl. With no aptitude at lying.

"What happened when you spotted Gazaranth's auras up on the hill?" rhetorically demanded the Senior Warden with the softest tone she could manage, but giving an outright impression of 'don't-shit-with-me-girl'. Mavis's neck muscles contracted as she tried once again to lower her chin while a whole concert of emotions played on her reddening cheeks and into her eyes. Embarrassment? Shame? Guilt? Fondness? Wouldn't she just make her mind up?

"T-they became i-insistent to k-know what was... up t-there. T-they s-stared and s-stepped closer a-and w-wouldn't s-stop looking a-at me l-like... like some _f-freak_ " Mavis hissed under her breath, then her voice grew even lower and Viole had to lean in to catch her words. "I... I p-panicked and s-sort of... shut down. I c-could hear them, S-Serpico arguing w-with G-Gilmore. H-He - G-Gilmore - wanted t-to... kill me, I t-think, b-because he t-thought I c-could be a Demon's t-thrall"

Viole grimaced inwardly. Serpico had told them, Duncan and herself, about the zealot being at odds with Mavis and himself, but _this_! Why had he omitted _this_?! Threatening a fellow recruit at sword point... hadn't that undead brother of his skewered him, Viole herself would have seen the knight hung by his intestines from the Tower of Ishal! Serpico better had some explaining to do.

And Mavis? How could she be so wretched for someone who hadn't had a second thought about butchering her like a pig for a panic attack? No, the girl was definitely _too _ soft-hearted. This better change soon enough: Mavis needed to steel herself, Ishtar's demise only left her spot to be taken by the ever-increasing inwards of the Fade. The hellish nightmare was proof enough, Viole herself would take the matter into her own hands. The Senior Warden sighed. _After _the battle.

"What happened then?" gently asked the Senior-Warden, her own fury throbbing at the bottom of her throat, unclenching her fist around Mavis' shoulder when the girl winced in pain. "Did you recover by yourself? Did the others back _Gilmore_ up?" She would have their hides if they did, Maker mark her word.

Again, Mavis shook her head meekly, giving up on lowering her chin under Viole's firm grasp. Again, embarrassment flashed on her face together with an abundance of doubt, but the whole mix was somehow sweetened by a share of fondness. Viole slightly raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

"N-no, Sen- Viole. To both your q-questions, I mean. S-Serpico yelled to G-Gilmore and D-Daveth and J-Jory kept their d-distance. Alistair" Again, the girl paused. Viole restrained herself from rolling her eyes in frustration. Alistair _what?_ Turned all-mighty Templar? "A-Alistair... s-s-scooped... s-s-scooped me up"

"_What did he do_?"

The exclamation left Viole's lips before she could master them back into her mind and Mavis shrunk back into her seat like a puppy expecting a sore beating, even going as far as raising her hands in protection over her head. Utterly astonished, Viole's hand slipped and Mavis raised her knees up to her chin, turning into a white-haired meat-and-cloth ball.

"I-I'm sorry" she muttered apologetically, her words muffled. "He is a Templar, and I am a mage, but he has been so kind and helpful and soothing and - Don't punish him, he's good, good-willing and I tricked him and he has no fault and-"

Viole gulped down a rock of raging horror and grasped Mavis's wrist firmly with her own hands, struggling for a moment to find the words and the tone she desired.

"Where are you, Mavis?" she demanded with a no-nonsense voice. The girl's apologetic rant quelled at the question and Mavis remained so still and stiff on her seat, her head buried between her knees, that for a moment Viole dumbly wondered if she had turned to stone. Or fallen asleep.

Then the former-Circle mage looked up at her with big, glistening violet eyes out of focus, slowly realizing that she actually was nowhere near the excruciating locus haunting her nightmares.

"Where _are_ you, Mavis?" repeated Senior-Warden Viole, stressing the urgency in her voice. Mavis focalized back to planet Thedas at the sound of someone speaking nearby and the grey, steel, enchanted bars turned into grey, heavy tissue with two green, cold dots in the centre of it. Slowly, a face emerged around the green dots Mavis realized were eyes, and right then she was back into Senior Warden's Viole tent. At the army camp. At Ostagar. Where Wynne was, but the Grey Wardens as well. And she was one of them.

"In your tent, Seni- Viole" mouthed Mavis meekly, distending her stiffed legs back into their dangling, former position. "I-I'm sorry, I d-don't know what h-happened." Viole's cold eyes warmed up a little presented with such a pitiful sight, but her voice remained stern when she eventually spoke. Mending open wounds was not one of her talents.

"Stop being apologetic. You have little to be blamed for, only having trusted some Chantry, betraying cow. Fanatics are to answer for their zealotry, not you nor your friends nor that good-hearted man I understand acted to you like a father, Ser Trash, Trunk, Trump..."

"Thrask" corrected Mavis going all dark-thoughts mode.

"Thrask, right" She didn't know the man, twenty years outside the Hold took their tool eventually. She knew Ser Alrik though. Stannard's man right to the bone. A wonder why he had been dispatched to Ferelden outside the reach of his chain-holder. Did Stannard think that her rabid dog would force that old sly fox of Irving to bow his head under Templar's heel _even more?_

"A man who knows" or probably knew, but that she wouldn't tell now " where his heart stands. Too few of them nowadays." Viole paused and drew a deep breath, witnessing Mavis' threatening to fall all the way down to the bottom of desperation-pit. Time to draw an ace.

"He did what he believed was the right thing to do. You did as well Mavis. You may have made mistakes, and you shall learn from them, but you _must _understand that what has been done to you was inhuman under all aspects and that allowing such... _acts_ to shape and dictate your actions would mean tossing all of Ser Thrask's efforts to protect you down the sewage plumbing"

"Plus, you are a Warden" Or soon will be. Maker's breath, if she survived the Joining the nightmares would... "And Alistair never took his vows as a Templar before his conscription" Viole gave her a knowing wink. "So I see no issue in _that_ department"

Mavis' adorable flushing pink cheeks - heading more and more on the tomato-red district with the passing seconds - leadthe conversation away from such excruciating memories and Viole pressed on the matter of the so-called Witches of the Wilds. Serpico's report had been detailed and accurate about the two women and his inclination to believe what could easily be considered two running apostates boasting up their reputation had been noted, but he was a mundane. Viole wanted the opinion of a mage with an astounding perception talents when it came to magical hazzards. Namely Mavis.

"Now, tell me about this old hag who calls herself _Flemeth_..."

* 0 *

Serpico kicked the umpteenth rain-smooth cobble out of his way as he proceeded under the pour, his boots still caked with the Korkari mud now over-layered and splashing in puddles of Ostagar's finer slime. He absent-mindedly archived for later examination that if the rain did not falter, the battlefield would soon be a quagmire halting even the bravest attempt of a charge. Even if there was someone dumb enough to order a charge in such a predicament. Oh-so mighty Theryn Loghain would see to it.

Had Duncan gone out of his mind? To compel _him_, of all the veteran, battle-hardened Wardens at his disposal, to play bodyguard for no less that Theryn Fergus Cousland. The mourning, fair-minded nobleman. The third most powerful man in Ferelden. Commanding a thousand man and more. Royal advisor. Somewhere near the King in the succession line, not as high up as Ali, but close enough.

Whose survival in the coming battle was Under. His. Responsibility.

Had someone slipped a wasted draught to Duncan? And to Viole as well, the Senior-Warden the actual mastermind behind this ominous, disastrous decision? How could they _trust _him after the ordeal in the Wilds, after Gilmore had died under his very own watch?

How could he trust _himself_ after that?

Gilmore had been a pain in the ass, denying that would not improve the opinion everyone - almost everyone - had of him. Duncan himself had been partially unsatisfied with his pick, but the late Theryn Bryce had firmly rejected any attempt of recruiting his youngest, Lady Elissa. Ironic though, the lass would probably be alive at the moment had her Father been less of a mule. And Gilmore would still be dead, or caged in some torture chamber, taken care of by over-eager henchmen wearing the Bear-insigna.

Jory was a coward who had completely misunderstood the Order's role and purpose when he had enrolled into that fateful tournament. A naive in good faith. Daveth and Mavis had been conscripted, so they didn't count. Gilmore...

Gilmore was a social climber. Fair and square, Serpico had seen it so many times before that recognizing them was almost second nature. He had sworn allegiance to the Couslands because his father had and his father's father had too before he was even born. He wanted more than he possessed with the base, non-wicked greed that binds together so many that it's no longer considered a sin or an offence: just the way things are and are set into motion.

The Order he had considered just another step, a safe enough launching pad to an higher station in life: his slice of glory to gain notoriety and fame, to catch his lord's eye from amidst so many of his loyal underlings. In the distance, maybe larger lands, or a vacant county - _bannorn Serpico, the counts here are called banns _- for his own. In a way, an even more foolish assessment than Jory's. Idiots in good faith could find their place and cope with their new role, whether in the Order or elsewhere.

Ambitious fools were restless and intolerant of any lengthy obstacle on their way. In the distance, an inevitable death or the achievement of their goals. In the Order? Only the former was an option. Gilmore would have died, sooner or later, whether against the darkspawn, in the Joining or fried after one too many scornful remark at Viole. Or impaled on his very dragon-slaying spear. And he had complied to his fate sooner than expected. In the Wilds. Under the deadly steel of his dead brother.

Under _his _command. His first command. And guilt was eating him up from the insides now. For such a prick.

"How did you cope with that, Father?" the Nevarran asked the wind, but Ser Hector's voice did not answer from the Fade. Nor he was a reanimated mummy, so that option was out too. Not even the thunder paid him heed. Father had seen so many of his own men die in battle, of waste and sickness and infections, and yet he had carried on and always came back home, to him and Mother, to share joy and sorrow and merry times.

He hadn't liked Gilmore. Mortalitasi's withered ass, he had almost peeled his hide off in the Wilds. He placed the blame for his brother's death in every one mage he met, without giving a damn about whether they deserved it or not. Hell, none actually deserved the knight's scorn for what happened but the true murderers. Or fleeing apostates.

Probably Morrigan and her Mother. _Flemeth_. Maker.

He abandoned himself against an half-buried column covered in damp ivy and sighed in frustration. There were too many issues raging into his mind at the moment, and not one he could wrap his head around. The battle, Gilmore, Theryn Cousland, Loghain, him being an exile and losing identity. The two haughty and mentally touched apostates. Such things run in the blood.

"Care to join me fo' some hot, gut-cripplin' whiskey at me tent?" asked a gruff voice behind him before an hand the size of his head patted him on the back, almost sending him face-front in the mud. knocking the breath out of his lungs. "Ya seem pretty beaten, Warden, and th' rain won't let ya gibber at the wind"

Serpico sighed and turned to greet the Kennel-Master. His aimless wanderings had led him once again nearby the man's domain. Was his subconscious trying to hint at something?.

"How are your mutts, Kurt? Have those flowers you made me pick up in the Wilds been on any use?" inquired the Warden, if nothing just to shift the topic away from himself. "I don't like my silver when I don't deserve it". Lie if one had ever been told.

Under the drenched facial-hair Kurt's broad smile cracked and darkened, and the big man turned to face the half-covered kennels with an unmistakable sadness in his heavy eyes.

"We lost some of the pack, Warden" grimly admitted Kurt, rubbing the bridge of his nose to fight back a skull-breaking headache. "Don't mistake me, th' flowers made an huge difference. We would probably lost 'em all hadn't ya showed up. Here" He trusted a big vial in the Serpico's hand, a greenish liquid placidly resting inside the thick glass, and clutched the Warden's fingers around it.

"A spare dose, jus' for ya. In case ya happen to need it in your travels. Only remedy I know against the Blight sickness of yours"

"Except for becoming a Warden" corrected Serpico, staring at the kennels closed gates and thrusting the vial in his belt satchel.

"Right ya are, Warden"

The two man stood under the downpour for several minutes without looking at each other, each lost in his own trail of thoughts and paying little mind to their increasing wetness. Finally, Serpico voiced the very question that he had addressed the unresponsive wind, feeling growing empathy with the hulking Kennel Master.

"How do you cope with those you lost under your care, Kurt?"

The man cast him a look that could mean everything and nothing, then turned to face his kennels once again and shrugged.

"I just do."

"What does that even mean?" questioned an astonished Serpico, but Kurt's hand on his shoulder stopped the words on his lips. With a very fatherly, weary voice, Kurt spoke up.

"When ya have seen so many come and go as I have, Warden, ya realize that there is only so much you can do. Bein' it a sick mabari ya have nurs'd for days or an old friend bleedin' to death in your arms in a crowd'd battlefield, there are thing we cannot prevent even with the best intentions" Kurt sighed and shut his eyes for a moment, a small frown furrowing his brow. Such memories choose odd times to resurface.

"This doesn't mean ya just go and give up. But when such things happen, ya have to tell yourself that it's not your fault and believe it. It's the only way to live on. You carry them with you from there on, either here" a calloused finger poked him on the ribcage "or here" another poke on his forehead " which one suits ya best, Warden. Ya never forget, but you carry on."

Kurt gave his back to Serpico and stirred under the rain, sighing loudly while he snapped some vertebras back into position. "And tell that weir' girl-Recruit of yours that her Mabari has imprinted quite alright. The girl had a thing fo' her"

With his face a mess of damp curls and mud, Serpico nodded at the broad back, a small, sad, weary grin curling the corner of his lips. Little he knew how alike the two man, Nevarran and Fereldan, looked alike at the moment. Serpico eyed the kennels, picturing the dozens of empty stalls and scores of furry, puppy-eyed warhounds being led down to the battlefield. Actually, not all of them. The convalescent were bound to some rest. And some spare, in case things turned horrible and the crown needed to repopulate its kennels. And the still-not-imprinted after the last skirmishes.

His chances weren't quite bad to begin with.

* 0 *

_Andraste's arson cheesecake!_

Daveth fell on his knees with a suffocated gurgle, his eyeballs gone all milky and glassy up into his skull. Muffled prayers to the Maker were whispered from the standing Wardens while the Denerim pickpocket clutched at his throat longing for a breath, his neck-muscles contracting and stiffening: Daveth's face quickly turned a darker and darker, the superficial veins a black spider-web streaking his pain-twisted features as he coughed and gasped, fingers digging bloody paths in his flesh in desperate search for a relieving draw of breath.

Alistair, standing the closest to the recruits as custom demanded - because Serpico had too much important an errand to attend to - winced and took a step back from his position, eyes widening in horror. He had been _told _that one recruit, a conscripted bounty hunter from Ostwick, had died during his Joining. Told. He had been long unconscious when the poor sod had gulped down the Joining potion.

Nobody ever told him how terrifying the process was. How immensely painful it would be for those who... failed. The former Templar recruit felt his knees turn to jelly beneath him and his abundant dinner pushing up to escape his somersaulting stomach. Daveth eyes' capillaries exploded from pressure and black blood sprayed on the ground before the dying man; uselessly trying to bear his weight with an hand Daveth crushed dead-weight to the ground without drawing his last breath, his tainted body going all limp while a pool of his own blood spread around his unmoving form.

Alistair felt all eyes upon him: the Warden's, Jory's, Viole's. Duncan's black eyes stared at him, expecting. Awaiting. Even Daveth's empty, blackened ones seemed to glance in his direction. Gulping down a wave of nausea, Alistair forced his legs to step forward, to move towards the dead recruit, to bend under his weight without having him fall on his armoured butt. Drawing a deep breath to steady his trembling hand, Alistair fingered the stiffening neck where he should have been able to feel a pulse, had Daveth not been so utterly, hopelessly _dead_.

"He... He's dead" he murmured, and left space to two of his own brothers (Vannon and Cedrus probably) to grab the corpse by armpits and ankles and dispose of it on a small pyre prepared beforehand. Without a word they complied to their duty. Not a sigh, not a sob, no visible sign of uneasiness. Stone golems much likely the one figurine Bann Teagan had once gifted him.

"I'm sorry, Daveth". Duncan's gaze lingered for a moment on his umpteenth failure, then he turned and presented the ritual cup to a dead-pale Jory. The knight took a step back, then another, frantically shaking his early-balding head at the approaching, ruthless Warden-Commander. The Redcliffe knight stammered on his words and sweated abundantly despite the merciless rain showering them, weakly refusing the death-sentence offered to him. One step, another, and the knight collided with Alec, jumping two feet in the air from fright.

"No... this isn't what I was told... I have a wife... a baby..."

Alistair felt the urge to shut his eyes close and clutch his hands over his ears. He wanted to grab Jory and slap him on the face. Wanted to go back, tell the man what was expected of him, that refusal was no way out once you were recruited, that no matter how terrifying...

No, he would _not _ look at her. Not now, with the horror and the utter, mind-blowing awareness of what was about to happen portrayed on his face. He- he knew she was looking at him with those big eyes of hers, dazed, puzzled, afraid, trembling under the cold rain, alone among so _many_... what? Wardens? Friends? Brothers?

Potential murderers?

Alec locked Jory in a bear-crushing grip, holding the knight rooted to the ground without even breaking a sweat while the man kicked, screamed, cursed and begged to let him go, swore upon his word and his father's grave and his son, he wanted to see his wife and be gone and...

Duncan offered him the silver cup with the embedded griffins, the concoction swaying placidly just below the hem. Death incarnate, be it sudden or delayed, no one escaped. Alistair felt the Taint in his blood react and lull soothingly into his ears while Duncan pressed the cup to Jory's serrated lips and the knight spasmodically twisted his head away, eyes shut close and trickles of tears glistening on his cheeks and mixing with the rain.

Alistair saw Duncan sigh and sadly shake his head and every cell of his body screamed to turn around, run away, stop Duncan, bury Mavis' head into his shoulder and avoid her what was to come. He followed his instincts.

As Alec seized Jory's head into his hands and forced him to kneel in the mud, something tapped him on the boot, stopping it from moving forward in the general direction of Mavis. A staff. A mage staff. Alistair realized who had been beside him the whole time and suppressed a reflexive shiver as the staff's bottom went back to rest at its master's feet and then a loud snapping sound.

Another one bit the dust. First Gilmore, then Daveth, now Jory. Would anyone survive this Joining? Were all the recruit he had shepherded bound to fail? Was _she _about to die? Oh Maker, please...

Jory collapsed to the ground like an empty sack, his armour clanking loudly against some half-buried stone. Vannon and Cedrus moved to attend to their task without waiting for him to confirm another death, swiftly removing the macabre burden from everyone's sight. Alistair awkward motion of gratitude withered as Duncan stared at him for a moment while he turned to face the last recruit. Mavis.

His black eyes probed him, seeking any sign of hesitation or insubordination. For the first time in six months since his fateful rescue, Alistair found himself _hating _his mentor, his saviour, the man he had come to consider his own father. This all was a test for the recruits as much as for him, the Junior Warden. To see if he had the guts to withstand the responsibilities that came together with his new station in life. If he could do '_all that duty required from him_'.

And Serpico wasn't here. _He _was the only one whose loyalty had to be tested.

"Mavis, from this moment on, you are a Grey Warden"

Alistair's stomach somersaulted one last time and then time seemed to stretch. He looked at her for the first time. Drenched from head to toe, her cape strangely amiss and her staff nowhere to be seen. Her violet eyes were glued to the cup in Duncan's hands from under a thick wall of white hair, wide with... Alistair couldn't tell, he simply couldn't.

She stood there, unmoving, frozen in place, as Duncan presented her the cup once more, provoking no reaction whatsoever. Mavis did not fall to the ground or curl herself into a ball, trembling and stammering until the panic attack ceased: she didn't even tremble in her altogether too light clothes for such a weather. Maker's breath, he... he couldn't even tell if she was breathing at all.

Viole tugged his sleeve and motioned him to stand behind Mavis with a pointed finger. Behind. Mavis. Realization dawned on him as he stared transfixed first at Viole and then at Duncan himself, only to see both of them coldly glare at him and stress the order with a curt nod. No room for discussion. Go there and... and -

Kill her. Simply as that. Snap her neck as the dutiful Templar you would have become. As the good Warden you ought to be.

Nobody moved to take his place. None of his brothers offered himself as the ritual murderer. The men he had grown to consider family, with whom he had spent the best six months of his life left him to dirty his hands with the blood of the girl... of the girl...

The girl that stepped forward and took the cup from Duncan's hands into hers, cold and stiff, as the Warden-Commander stared at her in bewilderment. Alistair felt his hear skip a beat as she sniffed at the contents, crinkled her nose in distaste and then flashed him, Alistair, a bright smile. Heavy with sadness and... gratitude?

Mavis gulped sipped at the darkspawn blood and handed the cup back to Duncan before her eyes turned milky white in her orbits and she coughed, once, twice and then again. Her shoulder began to tremble as the Taint attacked her organism and Alistair heard his boots splash in the puddles of slime.

Throwing back her head in a spasm of pain, Mavis fell backwards and darkness closed around her.

* 0 *

_AN: another chapter down, and still we don't see the battle. Taking things at an easy pace down in Ostagar, may be two or three more chapters before the battle ends and all. Alright, the aftermath of the expedition in the Wilds. Morrigan being a bitch - why am I not surprised. Oh right, I wrote it. Lame -; Mavis and Serpico coming to terms with bits of their issues and giving more details about their past (Yay for those who guessed Ser Thrask from Mavis flashback and hints at Serpico's family). And some foreshadowing here and there. Hint Hint Hint._

_Alistair's part mught sound quite melodramatic, particularly at the end, but I liked to think that he was not _so _overall indifferent to the deaths of poor recruits as he was in game (quick mention, then total void). Especially if he is rather fond, or getting to be, of one of them. __**Absolutely**__ tell me is if was too sugary for your standards, it actually is the part I'm most unsure about._

_Aaaand another cameo from Kennel Master Kurt as Serpico's confessor. Because I liked it._

_Again thanks to BlunderBore for his review and solving a doubt of mine (really, I mean it!)._

_See you next chapter with ol'Fergus rocking from heavens to hell._


	7. 7) To tame the fool

Chapter 7: To tame the fool

_AN n°1: Many, many thanks to BlunderBore who stroked my ego by reviewing mu chapters so far! Thank you man! _

_AN n°2 at the bottom!_

* * *

"My Lord, this is madness!"

"Glad I'm not the only one seeing that, Naois"

Fergus Cousland, newly installed Theryn of Highever, glanced at his most trustworthy lieutenant at the other side of the desk, much likely the last of his Father's advisors still alive and not washing Cousland's blood from his hands. Ser Naois Gilmore had aged twenty years in the last few hours, his sturdy, battle-hardened coast-man face now lined with far more wrinkles than he had ever noticed. The man salt-and-pepper mane was ruffled and untamed, his eyes haunted and empty; the cup of Antivan wine resting full and untouched at his side, he who had never refused a good drink ever since Fergus had memory of him.

Losing a son could turn a man upside down. Crush him into pieces. Closing off the excruciating behind his ribs was becoming no longer bearable. In Ser Naois' case, Gilmore had been the second son to reach the Maker's side before his own father, or so the Chantry would say before charging the faithful with the costs of the funeral cerimonies.

Ser Naois had thrown himself to his duty and Fergus better follow his example, least all his men lose their life due to a single man's suicidal hunger for glory and for minstrels boasting his name in drunken ballads.

"Having the King's army act as bait in the valley was enough of an hazard with good weather and clean sky, even with Loghain's men and Maric's Shield awaiting in ambush to break those monster's advance in two with a side charge. With this rainstorm raging outside? It's utter foolishness, My Lord, almost..."

"Suicidal. You speak the truth, my friend" Fergus caressed his growing chin-beard and trailed the borders of the ancient fortress on the map outstretched before the two of them with a finger. Memories of him having such meetings with Father at Highever Castle in the previous years started to surface, strategy lessons deemed necessary for a rising official in the Kings army and the scion of the Couslands, behind large stained-glass windows and sipping mulled wine to keep their wits about them. Elissa would barge in join them from time to time, as no one was actually capable of restraining the fiery auburn tornado, and at nightfall Oriana would carry hot trayers of old Nan's latest effort in the kitchens...

_Don't go there. Not now._

Suppressing a sigh and clenching his square jaw, Fergus focused back on the immediate matter. Defeat the darkspawn, rout the horde. Hell, with such reckless battleplanning, they would be lucky to actually _survive _the horde.

"The whole idea of facing the horde face-front is foolhardy, my friend. Look here" with a grave look he handed the aging knight the heaps of papers resting half-crumpled at his side "scout reports, from different companies. Ash warrior's. Even the latest Warden patrols'" Duncan had been kind enough to slip copies of those to him as well. Not a waste to feed the man with shelter and recruits in the years. The King - Fergus actually suspected Loghain to be behind it, and at some level he could not blame the man - had ordered that no news of this were to leak to the troops. Panic would ensue, the army would scatter and deserters would flee north en masse.

The horde outnumbered them. _Heavily _outnumbered them. Three to one, four to one. The Wardens were prone to five to one and despite the high esteem Cailan held them in, such alarming reports hadn't swayed him from his intent.

Face the horde. In the first lines. _Amidst_ the Grey Wardens. Why hadn't Loghain dissuaded him? Why hadn't Duncan, for Andraste's sake?.

"The numerical odds are against us. They have always been, since the Wardens insist that we are facing nothing less than a Blight" Naois' brow furrowed to new depths at the further mention of those he undoubtedly believed responsible for his treasured son's demise, but despite how sympathetic Fergus felt for the man he would not let personal issues affect his keen, practical eye. Blight or not - and Fergus saw little reason to doubt Duncan's word; it was Loghain after all who had a stinking hate towards the Order ever since that mysterious incident over twenty years before - Wardens were the most experienced darkspawn-slayers Thedas had to offer, except maybe for the dwarves of Orzammar.

"Why would the King risk everything in a grand battle with so little chances of success? Were the horde to win..."

"Better: why would Loghain _let _him do as he pleased and lead the army to complete annihilation?" corrected Fergus thoughtfully, suppressing such a hideous hypothesis before it could fully surface. And yet he should not, his Father's voice urged him. "Cailan is a good man, I have known him all my life, but untested and his reasoning is clouded by the myths and legends he's so fascinated with." This time a sigh escaped his pursed lips "Grey Wardens and Blights are just the icing on the cake. Loghain is the one with the brains behind the matter, the strategist. He held his ground regarding fabled Orlesian _support_ " Fergus grimaced at the conflicting word-play "and has been telling Cailan off since forever. I can't believe he would possibly agree with such a plan. Maker, not even a rascal like Cailan should actually _contrive _this on his own..."

For the hundredth time, Fergus examined the map, whishing for the damned rain to cease. He pictured which company would stand where, where the archers, where the hounds, where the conscripted militiamen and where the platoons of footed knights. The lack of horses had been a thorn in Ferelden's army side ever since the Occupation: horses meant chevaliers, chevaliers meant Orlais and the recently restored nobility - especially its _newest _exponents - wanted to have nothing to do with the occupants.

Not that the valley itself offered any space for manoeuvring a decent-sized force of armoured horsemen, and between the thick line of trees concealing them and the sloppy, steep slope Loghain intended to station his men on, horsemen would have been of little use there as well.

"The best option would probably be to reinforce the ruins and stall the horde here, between the Wilds and the valley, waiting for more troops to join us..." pointed out Ser Naois, drawing finger-lines across the map to signal spots where new stonework would be needed and barricades could be erected to maximum results. Fergus found himself grimly shaking his head; despite the good logic behind the knight's proposition, there was one major factor they lacked: Time.

"This would have been the best option out here, Ser Naois. Only, a week ago. The army has been here for _weeks_, prickling its feet and eating at winter food-reserves and all we have are some patched up barricades and pointed sticks down in the valley to lay in the horde's path. No strong bastion to hide behind and to hamper their charge on the even terrain. Battle-engines are out-dated and over-worked, an handful of ballistae here and there and the odd catapult. I can't possibly believe that _these _were everything Fort Drakon could spare. What's more, the ruins would only temporary hamper the darkspawn advance if they broke through our lines down in the valley, unless we were to place strong contingents and therefore hasten the King's army demise on the open field"

Was this... this _mockery_ the best Theryn Loghain, the famed strategist, the Hero of River Dane, Banisher of Orlesians, could master in this times of dire luck?

"If we baited the horde deeper in the valley we could offer the archers better targets..."

The two men's fervent discussion was abruptly interrupted by a royal steward making his dramatic entrance, announcing that the King required Theryn Fergus presence at his war meeting and that the '_additional_ _escort_' was waiting outside as a pool of rainwater formed at his boots. The last statement warranted a suspicious look from Ser Naois, one Fergus didn't find the heart to dismiss with a shrug. Trust was rare ware in these times. The loyal lieutenant deserved an explanation before he had a stroke.

"Cailan's request, Naois. Sometimes we must eat the carrot before feeling the baton" he explained as he retrieved his fur-lined cloak from the hanger and hung his shield on the leather straps on his back. The sword had never left his left hip ever since the news came from Highever. It was not the Family sword, nor was the Shield or Father's silverite armour - those were probably still locked in the armoury, or boasting the traitorous bastard's ego in his chamber at Vigil's Keep - but their excellent quality could not be denied. Clutching his fist around it sent a jolt of savage excitement running up his spine. Tonight darkspawn and hideous creatures; then, Howe he would dismember. Slowly. Savouring it. He would pay for every spill of shed blood, every truncated life. He would fucking mope the floor with the viper's sardonic grin, impaling his hooked face over Highever's gates.

No earthly justice would bring back his family. But the Maker may be witness, he would have his vengeance a thousand times and more.

Under Ser Naois eloquent, weary look, the young Theryn did not allow himself to revel in the disturbingly pleasant feeling. Not too much. Maker knew a good dose of savage intimidation could work wonders on illogical, rambling crowned minds.

* 0 *

_'I should really draw up a list and label it _"Worst case scenarios". _Really, it would save me _so _much trouble to rack my brains beforehand. Just in case, you know Serpico. Just in case.'_

First voice on the list: Ser Gilmore, son.

Fact: He died a gruesome death at the hands of his not-so-dead Templar brother. Again, under my direct responsibility.

Fact: A good leader doesn't allow his men to die pointless deaths.

**Conclusion**: Junior Warden Serpico is _not_ suited for leadership. Or babysitting. Not until he grows a bushy beard. A _long _bushy beard.

Worst Case Scenario n°1: Nobody puts blame on me. Actually, I'm being praised for the overall successful accomplishment of having broken the recruits to the spawn with little casualties _and _retrieving the lost treaties from the hands of... uhm... _sneaky witch-thieves_.

Worst Case Scenario n°2: As further _reward, _I am been assigned to no-less then Theryn _fucking _Cousland as an honoured bodyguard, because I have demonstrated how _adept _I am at keeping people alive. Said Theryn seems fairly positive towards having such an _accomplished _protector at his side.

Worst Case Scenario n°3: The mournful, rightfully sceptical and more-so rightfully _angry _Father of this voice is the duty-bound right hand and trusted second-in-command of said Theryn.

Worst Case Scenario n°4: Archdemon Uthermiel makes his nasty, fire-breathing gut-spraying appearance on the battlefield and kills every last Warden save for myself. I'm therefore field-elected Warden Commander of Ferelden until this crisis is dealt with, namely the Blight.

Worst Case Scenario n°5: King Markus Penthagast finally goes completely insaand hereby nominates me his scion, for the boundless joy and relief of countless Penthagast and Van Markham scheming family members who appropriately send Crows and Reavers as personal well-wishers just like custom demands. Lovely.

_'I'm already at Worst Case n°3 in less than twenty four hours, in a couple of days I could find myself King of Nevarra. A very _dead _King, for that, but who looks at such hindrances these days. Now, let's get to know this Cousland'_

Cousland emerged from the flapping entrance loosely clad in a rich-but-practical fur coat, one Serpico found himself envying almost instantly. He was soaked to the very bone, his wool griffin-embedded surcoat draping tightly around unpolished armour and providing nothing in the district of much-wanted heat but a thousand and one in 'I'm-so-getting-a-pneumonia-out-of-this'. Ferelden could turn far colder and far _moister _than he had projected over six months ago when he had stubbornly got off his water-sailing prison in the charming Denerim harbour with the spring sun kissing him tenderly. He had also inhaled for the first time the rancid, lungs-filling smell of wet-dog. _So_ characteristic. Refreshing.

Not acquiring a thick. warm cloak first chance might have been a juvenile error on his part, but at least now he could savour the endearing smell wherever he went, despite dogs being one of the few assets true Fereldans did not lack.

The mabari , her chubby tail wagging and wet-dog mode fully on, yapped heartily at the nobleman's appearance, standing on all four with her rough tongue dangling loosely from her paws despite the harshening weather. Serpico eyed the mabari's enthusiasm warily, curling his lips in thoughtful worry: Kurt had been explicit about the continued vicinity required for a full, successful imprinting and about not letting the girl become too fond of passing _strangers_, lest the whole process be ruined. Sure enough, she had been particularly well-disposed towards him from the very beginning - her smart eyes almost conveying the gratitude she must feel for the life-saving flowers Serpico had provided - and right now she carried a spare, body-stinking sleeveless tunic of his knotted around her neck as a makeshift collar.

Still...

"Your Lordship" courteously bowed Serpico, one fist resting on his heart in proper Nevarran salute. And his cold grey-blue eyes never drifting from the nobleman's face. He succeeded in drawing Cousland's attention to him all at once from the over-excited dog, at least. The Nevarran Warden felt Ser Naois's quite hostile glare and Cousland's more neutral, fairly intrigued one on him and regained his straight posture just as the requirements of courtesy and his more personal _interpretation _of protocol were promptly fulfilled.

"Warden... Serpico, I presume" consented Cousland, his hazel-streaked brown eyes lingering first on his spear and then, again, on the yapping dog. As if they weren't standing under a downpour, caking their boots with slime and mud, Cousland outstretched his hand, a pleasant smile plastered on his face. "A pleasure to meet you. I understand you will be watching after my reckless self in the coming battle?"

Cousland's lack of... formality took Serpico fairly aback. Quite... the amicable visage for a noble, he had to admit. Still... as he grasped his forearm, he felt the tension the nobleman tried to suppress run through his own arm and his eyes... under apparently placid, amused waters, a terrific hailstorm raged, pushing to be unleashed. Cold, righteous fury mixed with seemingly endless sorrow, surely a sight to behold when the right time came. And possibly avoid being in its path.

A very capable, talented actor to hide such turmoil so effectively. A seasoned player, fair enough. Maybe he should add another voice to his newly-founded list.

"I remember you from today's ceremony. Not my brightest speech, you may have noticed" half-joked the Theryn, studying him closely from behind a veil of carefully-sewn self-reproaching. _'Attentive man, this one'_ contemplated Serpico '_to remember one such as me among a sympathetic crowd... or maybe it's just a well-founded guess. All Wardens were supposed to attend. Does he request formal condolences? He doesn't look the type to appreciate empty formalities from a complete stranger' _Serpico elected to keep quiet and let Cousland reach the point.

"But I don't remember your healthy companion, Warden. Has she been with you for long?"

_'He probably knows enough about me. Surely he wouldn't let some unknown stranger, Warden or not, stand too close to him, not after what happened to his family. He has had people do some hasty background research on my account, probably knows I'm Nevarran and a Junior, maybe that I am an exile as well.' _Only Viole, and therefore Duncan, knew anything more about the circumstances of his recruitment, and even them knew little of the _actual _truth. '_Viole wouldn't have slipped anything, she's too tight about her little meetings. Duncan is on the same boat. Still... he's murmured to have been in good relationship with the late Theryn, so possibly the two of them have met time and again before... Shush, I'm being too paranoic' _concluded Serpico, slapping himself mentally. '_This is not Nevarra, nor Orlais, just Ferelden. Be natural and see how thing turn out'_

"Not at all, your Lordship" politely answered the Warden, keeping his face quiet and unmoving as still water. "Actually, Kennel Master Kurt just started imprinting her on me after I helped heal her and others from Blight sickness" Cousland's bemused expression did not impress him, it could actually be feigned; Naois Gilmore's appeared more sincere in both his admiration for the mabari and his cold resentment but again, evidently not as adept as his liege lord-

Cousland's lips broke into a thin smile and he actually _kneeled _n the dirt to pat the mabari on her furry head, a gesture the dog eagerly welcomed. Serpico grimaced inwardly, but Cousland's next question almost elicited a wince out of him. Worst Case Scenario n°3.5

"Good girl she his" he complimented as she lapped his opened hand, carefully not to spoil the ragged cloth playing collar. "What's her name?"

Serpico gulped down and stole a quick glance at Ser Naois. _'Cold resenment a Mortalitasi ass but... oh damnit, here goes'_.

"Rory, your Lordship" _Very girlish huh?_

Ser Naois inhaled enough air to burst his lungs open, a look of utter shock storming on his roughly sculptured face. Then, shock left room to indignation/confusion/consternation/scorn/anger in rapid succession, colour rapidly flowing to his burly neck and burnt cheeks.

"How dare you, you sodding..." he snarled, taking a threatening step forward. Serpico was not Mavis - _Mavis, I wonder if by now... stop that, you can do nothing for them now _- he did not back down and held the elder knights ferocious glare as guilt and doubt started eating up at him again. _Was this a mistake after all?_

Sensing his growing discomfort, Rory gave her hind quarters to Cousalnd's face and pushed her muzzle into his stiff hand and licked his leather-covered palm, looking up at him fondly. _'No, definitely not a mistake' _he decided, deftly scratching the dog behind the ears and earning himself an appreciating growl.

Cousland interrupted his lieutenant obscene rant with a raised hand commanding silence, but the bemusement, true or fake as it may have been, had vanished from his face when he glared at Serpico. _'No, glaring isn't... proper. He's studying me, weighing my reactions. A bishop I'am'_ May he be damned before he let a noble have his upper hand with him so easily.

"I require an explanation, Warden Serpico" uttered Cousland with a controlled, only slightly edgy tone. Cousland stood before him with his arms crossed, actually an inch shorter than the Warden himself, but far more broad-shouldered and thick-chested. Very Fereldenish.

"You may not know, Your Lordship, Ser Gilmore, but I was the commanding officer in the Warden's today's expedition in the Wilds" Ser Naois stopped on his feet, blistering and likely trying to give him a hearstroke by sheer glaring, but Serpico was quite unimpressed. Actually, only eroding guilt stopped him from chuckling at the knight's effort. Cousland motioned him to continue, swiping a wet lock back behind his ear.

"Your son Roland, Ser Gilmore, was under my responsibility and command." _Actually the first time I use the man's full first name_ "We went deeper into the Wilds than the usual patrol and Roland proved himself a valiant asset for the party" Half-truth. His slaying abilities were balanced by the total absence of teamwork. Serpico carefully prevented his face from twitching and reveal the truth. "Unfortunately, we came across an... _unexpected..._ menace" Hesitation was good. Now, don't be too arrogant, nor too sugary "Ser Gilmore... Roland fought valiantly, but in the end we could not save him, despite our best efforts" It was true, little Mavis couldn't do anything by the time the demon had been crushed. Gilmore had been far, far gone.

Ser Naois stared at him between fury and weariness, weighing his words. At last, it was the latter that prevailed: the elder knight hawked, shook his head and seemed to deflate inside his armour, his shoulder slouched under the increasing burden aggravating him.

"I... I would have preferred to send my boy off... with the proper rites". Serpico gritted his teeth, wondering for a moment which son he was referring too. No, Gilmore's brother had apparently already been burned and mourned, despite his body being carrion fodder in the swamps. One could ask what the Chantry had given him inside a new bright-new Templar armour; still, Serpico regretted abandoning the Recruit, _his _Recruit's corpse to the blighters.

"By the time we achieved our goal, the area had been overrun by the darkspawn" No lies this time. To his own chagrin, Morrigan had been forced to play guide since the way the Wardens had come from was actually closed off by the time Flemeth had handed the treaties back. Simply overrun by the advancing horde. "We could not go back without putting the other Recruits under risk. It was ultimately my decision, Ser Gilmore, and I take every responsibility upon me" _Even your son's death_, he would have added, but he saw no need to voice _that_ "You have my deepest condolences, he will be remembered. _I _will remember your son, Ser Gilmore. That's the reason behind the girl's name"

A walking, eating, barking and shitting admonishment.

Cousland placed a comforting hand on his lieutenant's shoulder. '_Proper how he, who has suffered such a hideous tragedy recently, would be the one to offer his sympathies for other's losses, known and unknown'_

_'Maker, I sound like my Father'_

Maybe his half-truths would allow the knight to find some sense of closure. Gil... Roland had mentioned having quite a large number of siblings at home. Maybe some of them had survived Highever onslaught and would surpass unscathed the following persecutions. The elder knight would still have them when he went back home.

Or maybe he would die tonight, tramped under darkspawn filthy feet while protecting his liege lord. Comforted by the induced belief that his eldest boy had died a good death surrounded by people who cared for him. Poor, old man.

* 0 *

Heated shouting reverberated for quite the lengthy distance in the thick, stormy air. The source was otherwise unmistakeable: gold and silver, blond and crow-black faced each other with unsuppressed hostility and roaring accusations under the freshly repaired roofing sheltering the worst of the weather and leaving enough room for that... _parody_ of a strategic meeting.

Father would be appalled.

At least he now had something more to add to the surprisingly short list labeled "Ostagar siegeworks". Fergus shook his head in flaming frustration and quickened his pace, holding his fur tighter around his body. Maker it _was _getting cold.

Behind him, Warden Serpico was a silent, shivering guardian, saying nothing unnecessary and seeing everything: quite the acute conscriptee Duncan had found himself this time. Fergus had almost heard the engines smoothly spinning inside that curly head of his when they exchanged those few words, before he decided to send the visibly shaken Ser Naois to rally the troops, only to finally concede to let the old knight await him at the edge of the encampment with his guards.

"You are paranoid, Loghain! Our conflicts with the Orlesians ended thirty years ago, they belong to the past! The Empress offered help is nothing more than that: _help_. Against the Blight!"

"How fortunate Maric didn't live to see his son handing Ferelden to its very oppressors so _easily_" scoffed back Loghain, his scowl bordering the unearthly "To see his lifelong enemies march unscathed through the very lands our people bled and died to set free, ravaging and raiding unpunished!" The Theryn of Gwaren voice lowered into a venomous hiss. "I'll be cold and dead before one of those painted, effeminate bastards steps through Gherlen's Pass! And no childish fable of yours will change that!"

"Grey Wardens have ended four Blight so far Loghain! Every time an Archdemon rose they drove it to the ground! Am I wrong, Duncan?" Fergus couldn't yet see the Commander vividly enough, but he supposed he had given his tacit support for the King kept on rambling. "No kingdom has ever succeeded against the Blight without the Order at their side, you must admit that Loghain!" Cailan's attempt to one-way, stubborn diplomacy with the elderly General was turned to naught at the further praise of the Wardens. '_Maker Cailan, the only person in Ferelden more hostile to the Wardens is probably Howe_... ' Fergus clenched his jaw as the smug face floated before him and emerged into the flickering light of torches and lanterns placed on every spare chair and hanging from broken columns.

"And remember who is the _King_, _Theryn _Loghain"

"Your fascination with myths and legends will be your undoing Cailan!" bellowed Loghain, the veins now visible against the still somewhat smooth skin of his neck. Then the Theryn of Gwaren pinched the bridge of his hawkish nose and breathed out in poorly-controlled anger. A gesture Fergus had found himself mimicking more and more of late "As is your insistence of standing in the front lines. And this grand, useless battle. We should have built barricades and reinforced the ruins, stalling the horde here and await for _blasted _Eamon Guerrin's men!"

"By the time Eamon's men would join forces with us the Orlesians would be only days away and - Oh, Fergus! About time you came!" greeted the King, stopping in mid sentence and gripping his forearm in an over-excited bid of welcome. Fergus nodded curtly, scanning the small crowd gathered around the long, exquisitely carved oak and ebony table with the sigils of all major houses embedded around the hems and Ferelden royal coat of arms evident in the middle, the two mabaris' eyes round, polished rubins . A personal gift from Mother to the King. He didn't know if he should be offended or flattered. Maker why should he care?.

Duncan always stood out with his exotic silverite-trimmed cuirass and white linen veils, straight into a tensed posture on the other side of the _dining_ table from the King. To the right, a bald, gaunt man with a slightly curved back, examining the scene with a wicked light in his eyes; and beside him an elderly woman in her late forties-early fifties who emanated an aura of motherly authority. It reminded Fergus somewhat of his own mother, but the two were unmistakably mages from the Tower. If their staves and delicate clothing weren't enough to sell them, the armored white-steel clad figures standing at either side of them erased every shred of doubt. And further to the side, in her glorified ritual clothes, with an haughty expression plastered on her ugly face, Revered Mother Marelle.

What in Andraste's name was the woman doing at a _war meeting?_!

Checking his temper - _I can't break now. Too much hangs on the balance_ - Fergus mentally took note of those who however _should _have been there but were exemplar in their absence.

"Where is Urien?" he inquired coldly, giving a show of looking around himself with little expectation of seeing the old Arl emerging from the muddy ground. Cailan's smile faltered a little, the corner of his lips lowering slightly before the juvenile excitement took the upper hand.

"Urien... the old man departed this morning with an heavy escort. I sent him back to Denerim with orders to rally more troops. Of Wulffe and Bryland we have no news as of yet, unfortunately" Wulffe would come with Guerrin, if they ever showed up in the near future. '_How can he be so lenient on vows of loyalty? Being the King's uncle doesn't release Guerrin from lifting his hindquarters from his seat_!' And Bryland... Did the third survivor of White River, his godfather, know of Howe's treachery? Was he feasting in Highever Halls? The mere thought brought the taste of vomit to Fergus's mouth. And Cailan only added fuel to the fire!

'_Who deprives himself of valiant soldiers for an unneeded errand as babysitting a spineless pervert at the eve of battle?!' _

"To deal with Howe, once tonight we exit the battlefield victorious!" added Cailan almost apologetically. Fergus however took the promise for what it actually was: self-absorbed boasting, empt rhetoric, the proverbial chickens over-counted before the actual hatching. Or the actual battle. Still, he had to wait and see, to be patient despite the urge to slap Cailan.

_'They should be here in the South along with their infantrymen, not_ 'preparing' _for a theoric expedition that will never hit the road if we all die here_._ Guerring commands the largest force in Ferelden after Loghain, Wulffe almost a thousand hardened in the frays against the Chasind. Where is their honor as Arls?'_

"I appreciate your intentions, Your Grace" flatly stated Fergus, giving the King's ego a first stroke and earning himself a relieved nod from the King and an ambiguous look from Loghain. "No time to deal with that traitorous snake is soon enough" And with _whomever_ had part in his scheming.

"We shall see to it, my friend. Now, for the final details to fall into place..." The King gave Loghain an eloquent, tiresome look, to which the Theryn rolled his eyes and groaned, leaning heavily against the thick ebony surface. Loghain pointed a silver-clad finger at the over-detailed enormous map before them and spoke with an harsh, exasperated voice.

"Since you are _so_ willing to persist in this folly, Cailan, you and half of the army shall position in the valley, the first lines just below the Lung. It should create a bottleneck narrow enough to reduce any chance of-"

"Right" jumped in Cailan, dismissing further detail with an annoyed wave of the hand "the Grey Wardens and I will challenge the horde to charge at our lines- and then?"

"Then-"

"Pardon me, Your Grace" interrupted Fergus, earning a scowl and a glare from Loghain himself, cut short twice in less than thirty seconds. "I personally doubt that risking your life - and half the army's as well - is indeed an effective strategy" He had heard enough foolishness exiting Cailan's mouth in just one go to just play the silent statue as Duncan himself. Why was the Warden Commander not trying to dissuade the King? Cailan would listen to _him _if he ever listened to anyone! The veteran darkspawn slayer his father had always considered a trusted ally and a treasured advisor was just standing idly, hands tied behind his back. His only movements had been greeting Fergus with a sharp nod and following the altercation with his eyeballs!

Cailan looked annoyed. Worse, Cailan looked annoyed at _him _for being the voice of reason. Hardly restraining himself from rolling his eyes up, the King raised his dashing face and his perfectly combed hair and gave him a weighing look.

"And what would you suggest, Lord - Theryn Cousland?" All gone the 'my friend's and the adequately prepared words of circumstances, now the selfish child had emerged again in full glory. Fergus swallowed hard, not from any whatsoever intimidation, but simply from boiling anger. The saliva wouldn't remain in his mouth much longer, and the other way out would have roused as much satisfaction as turmoil. His men didn't need either. They just needed their lives for themselves.

Something the King did not seem to comprehend in his boastfulness. _'Untested I said. Good-willing and eager to learn. Crap'_

"Scout reports say we are heavily outnumbered, _your Grace_, and today's rainstorm has turned the solid battlefield into a quagmire, a death-trap for our men. Any charge on such terrain would result in havoc Your Grance. I find myself in agreement with Theryn Loghain's mentioned proposition: stall the horde from a safer position, hold them back turning a potentially disastrous event to our own advantage"

Fergus pointed at the representation of Ostagar's fortress on the map, then at the bare land around with an all-comprehensive gesture, mentally picturing Highever blossoming gardens to avoid punching that cheeky look out of Cailan's face. The tiresomeness that made children and fools look all haughty and smug at their alleged discernment. Then his finger rested on the narrow, colored trail indicating a path, a plan slowly forming into his head as he spoke.

"The Fortress has four major access points consisting in steep unpaved paths ascending tortuously for more than three hundred feet before reaching the old gate arches and the actual royal encampment" Fergus poked at the map, appreciating Loghain's and Duncan's growing interest in what he had to say. " Two for each side of the valley, one heading down in the plains and one safely at the back north, plus a small number of hunters trackroads broad enough for a small cart to slip through"

"Those are too many entrances" pointed out Cailan, his golden hand tapping rhythmically at the wooden surface "We don't have enough time to serrate all of them Fergus. A forward fight is the -"

"Let Cousland have his say Cailan!" snarled Loghain without raising his eyes from the map, a hand rubbing his freshly shaved chin. "There will be plenty of time later to hammer the final nails to our coffins"

'_Curious he would say that _now. _He has been here for weeks, and in all this time forcing Cailan to rebuild and consolidate the current position for a war of attrition hasn't been an option?_ That he would archive for later notice. Maybe Loghain was really turning senile as Father liked to jest during close-door family reunions, where the theryinhood was left outside the heavy doors of their private chambers with the menservants and the royal missives, allowing the Couslands some sacred time in each other's company.

_Later my son Fergus_ whispered Father's voice.

Fergus nodded stiffly at Loghain and resumed his inspired explaination with a new flicker in his eyes has the last pieces fell into place in the grander scheme developing - correct, _developed_ - in his mind's eye. The only obstacle was earning the necessary agreement and support.

"The field between us and the Wilds is a perilous swamp by now. Even if the storm was to roll away from us, it's to late for the ground to dry up. I say: let the darkspawn traverse it. Let them come at us, at our conditions. From how I see it, the darkspawn will blindly charge at us under arrows and stones anyway, slobbering over easy prey. The more we can bombard them from a safe position the better"

"Two separate forces should stand on either side of the Fortress, around and inside the ruins. A larger one at the main army camp and a smaller on the other side of the Lung, around the Tower of Ishal: there the Fortress original structures have preserved far better." If he had his way, Cailan would be stationed exactly there, possibly with a platoon of rude, scolding officers and Duncan to oversee the actual battle effort. Fergus' doubts on the Warden's lack of initiative didn't diminish his value on the field. Not by much anyway. "We can obstruct the front passages with masonries otherwise just laying around and hampering our maneuvers: the hunter's trackpaths as well, we don't want the spawn to easily flank us and turn our defense line to naught. Barricades, makeshift barriers and such. With the large numbers of servants just sitting around, such mere results can be achieved quickly enough. And the soldiers wouldn't be the wearier"

"Boulders can be heaped on top of the paths and the archers would have an clean line of shot from above, while the darkspawn would be forced to carve their way through shin-deep mud only to reach the base of the fortress and their archer's shots would be heavily spoiled, if the wind holds up in this general direction"

Fergus noticed Loghain murmur under his breath, much likely prospecting the precise numbers of men required to carry out such a strategy and their ideal disposition among the ruins. Line of archers all the way up, pikemen and shield walls. He was still scowling deeply and his brow's creases looked nothing but the part, but Fergus figured that it was all due more to in-depth thinking than gut-burning disappointment at his golden pupil.

Duncan... Duncan glanced briefly at Fergus himself, his dark eyes, so much alike the ebony wood his hands were resting on, glimmering lightly in admiration, his tight mouth curled up in what might resemble a smirk in better lighting. An awkward expression on the Warden Commander's usually stern and imposing face to be sure. To which Fergus would easily prefer a single, clear, sound word of advice.

"But what about the _ravine_, Fergus?" loudly complained Cailan, throwing his hands in the air and then slamming them on the table nervously. He didn't like to be contradicted. Or to be outspokenly excluded from the '_important talk_'. He never had, for as long as Fergus had known him. His father had spoiled him sick after Queen Rowan's premature demise, leaving him to complacent nannies and tutors as he carried on with the bachelor lifestyle.

"Your stalemate would end in the blink of an eye if the darkspawn crossed through. The ravine is devoid of ruins and no heap of rocks you can mass would be of any use!"

_'And who should I thank for that? Who should be held responsible, pray?'_

"And how long do you think the men would hold up anyway?"

"Far longer than if they were thrown mindlessly thrown against the darkspawn" hissed Fergus in annoyance, the mask of forced composure slipping "The two forces aforementioned will only be playing bait as you intended yourself anyway" _you suicidal drama hero_. And a second stroke to his damned diminishing pride "I believe the darkspawn will charge directly at our defences, to the closest preys they cast their eyes upon. At least at first. With height and terrain advantage holding against the initial impetus shouldn't prove too troublesome, and once we have thinned their ranks significantly even mindless creature like them will resolve to enter the easier path left on display. Is my conception ill-founded Duncan?"

The other solemnly nodded "You described their basic behavioral pattern accurately, Theryn Cousland. Under normal circumstances, it would be simply impossible for such large numbers of darkspawn to assemble without tearing at each other. However, under the command chain of the Archdemon" and here Duncan politely paid no heed to Loghain's scoff "they develop some kind of crude intelligence. They will probably throw themselves at our defenses until a General or a Vanguard would order them to stop doing so anyway, it itself commanded by Uthermiel."

"However, we must not commit the fatal mistake of underestimating them, my lords, your Grace. to compare them to ordinary enemy with basic needs" gravely continued Duncan, repaying Loghain with a pointed look "They are relentless and unfaltering, unaffected by fear and weariness as _we _are. More than once they have deployed tactics and strategies during Blights we had never heard of before, much likely a conscious fighting force. The Archdemon is behind such improvements in their feral condition. Ambushes, tunnel-digging, baiting, force splitting: nothing of this is unknown to the darkspawn during the Blights. Don't give anything for granted with Uthermiel."

Fergus nodded curtly at the Warden Commander but then was interrupted once more by Cailan's growing restlessness. "I'll say it again, it doesn't matter how many you can slay on your pathways before they decide to use their wits. Just like Duncan said" he added with a mix of pride towards _his _Warden and reproach for him, Fergus. Showing unenviable deafness to implict meanings "Once they enter the unguarded valley, you will be done in."

Loghain had apparently decided on ignoring the petulant young King altogether. He glanced at Fergus with steel cold grey-blue eyes like an hawk hovering above its prey and seemed to read the next section of his strategy clearly in his head.

"You would station another force at the very end of the valley to keep the back routes free and halt the horde's advance. Without any shelter or ground advantage" There was disappointment in Loghain's voice as he considered the major flaw in Fergus' plan. Cousland, on his part, could see the other Theryn's point. On that end, the valley's deeper half was hardly the bottleneck its entrance was, forcing any stationing force to stretch its lines further than necessary. With the plus of keeping an eye out for any attempt of surrounding from the long route.

"Exactly" confirmed Fergus, only to see Loghain's expression sour and Cailan's rejoice. Even he understood that without Loghain's support any plan would end up in the trash bin. How he could have approved of Cailan's recklessness was however beyond Fergus' comprehension.

"Around third of the army. It shall both keep the back routes free of strugglers and skirmishers, ensuring a quick retreat lane were the necessity to arise for either parties and attract the horde into the valley. Then, at a given signal..."

Every successful plan was structured over careful and thoughtful planning, with an all-round comprehension of each sides' battlestrength and means. Then orders had to be put into action through a solid command chain: where an hesitation could cost hundreds of lives, the officers were bound to be professional, battle-hardened, no-shit individuals. With a good streak of luck, everything would eventually turn out for the best.

Or so the books would say.

Father had implemented such teachings with one of his own. All previously said was good and necessary, fair enough, but successful plan developed around an idea. More often than not, a crazy, nut idea brought into reality by sound, mad-proof minds who had at their disposal the means mentioned beforehand. Means to an end. In the end, everything rotated around a sudden stoke of genius. Or a fairly mentally-touched mastermind.

"... we blow the Lung down on them. With the ballistas and the explosives. The whole bridge with its immense weight and size, Andraste's statues as well. Down on their blighted heads"

Fergus didn't feign surprise at his interlocutors reactions. Duncan coughed loudly and hawked, the mages looked at each other while the Revered Mother with her renowned experience shook her senile head in great distress. A mocking, loopsided grin parted Cailan's lips but before he could reciprocate with what he reckoned an equal foolish remark Fergus turned to Loghain and to Mother Marelle standing at close distance.

"And then we allow the mages to have their way!"

_* 0 *_

_AN n°2: A looooot of Fergus in this chapter, plus Serpico finally finding a personal closure of sorts. I know it may sound banal, but having the Nevarran imprint on a Mabari and name her after the man he failed serves many purposes: Serpico finds a way to cope with his remorse, taking a bit too literally Kurt's advice about 'always bringing them with you'; mabari equals ferelden, so Rory is actually a bridge thrown between Serpico's conflicting identities: Nevarran exile and Ferelden Grey Warden; and ultimately, to have more mabaris in the plot (even though I might forget about them from time to time but I will seriously try ;)._

_Fergus' hostility towards the Chantry is not random at all. Actually, he probably will have more reasons to back it up as the story develpos._

_Alright, hot topic. Strategically, Ostagar battle could hardly have been more ill-planned. Split up the army to surround the enemy is actually a good idea: doing so by placing the baiting half in a bottleneck without exploiting the _huge _advance the Fortress provided is moronic. I won't even mention letting Cailan lead said half since Loghain planned to have him killed anyway and the Theryn was the one making plans. In canon only a round of arrows is thrown before the hounds are sent to their deaths and Cailan orders a _charge_. On a muddy terrain. Against superior forces. _

_Waterloo docet._

_With another keen eye surveying the matter and unbiased by the necessity of having the King killed, I saw ways to improve Ferelden's army chances. First, despite the obvious lack of improvements to Ostagar's ancient defences, a smaller force can hold out against a much larger one thanks to height advantage and the ominous terrain conditions that would affect only the darkspawn. Plus, it wouldn't take much time to build up makeshift barricades just to halt the otherwise deadly impetus of the spawn. _

_About _blowing _Ostagar's bridge... well... the idea came to me while I was quite tired, but after some careful thinking I'm not prone on dismissing it. Yes, it's a desperate measure and would cut direct communications between the tow halves of the encampment, but I weighed the matter carefully and decided that the pros greatly balanced the cons._

_Next Chapter: The Battle of Ostagar (will probably split the chapter in tow if it ends up too long)_


End file.
